no,” Dianne said slowly. Couldn’t Amy see?
Amy must have picked up on her surprise, because she blushed. “I just thought, her being your daughter and all …”
“That Dianne would build her a house,” Alan said, stepping in to help.
“Julia is …” Dianne searched for the words to explain.
But Amy couldn’t contain herself anymore. She walked straight over to Julia, bent down to look her in the eyes. Her face was full of warmth and friendliness.
“Gaaa,” Julia said.
“Hi, little girl,” Amy said, crouching beside Julia’s chair.
Dianne stepped forward, wanting to get Amy away from her.
“Let them …” Alan whispered, grabbing Dianne’s wrist.
“Pretty little girl. Oh, you pretty little girl,” Amy said.
“Gaaa,” Julia said again. She had seemed happy to see Alan, but she was utterly entranced with Amy. Julia’s hands drifted in their strange ballet, gently tracing the air in front of Amy’s face.
“How old are you?” Amy asked.
Dianne wanted to reply for Julia, but she found that her voice wouldn’t work.
“She’s eleven,” Alan said.
“Almost my age,” Amy said, holding Julia’s left hand. She spoke not to the adults but to Julia herself. “I’m twelve.”
“Deeee,” Julia said. “Deee … Gaaaa …”
“She’s not surprised,” Dianne said quietly to Alan. “Most people see Julia and think she’s so much younger.”
“Amy’s young for her age,” Alan said. “I got it into my head she could baby-sit for Julia. Maybe not by herself, but when you or your mother are around. It would give you a little free time, and I think it would be good for Amy. I mentioned it to your mother.…”
“You don’t have to look after us, Alan –”
“I know that,” he said.
“This is my father’s watch,” Amy said, holding out her wrist for Julia to touch. “It weighs a ton, but I don’t care. I’ve had it eleven years now, and it’s still running strong. It was being fixed at the jeweler’s the day he died. He was a hero, he went down with his ship.…”
Dianne had to turn away. She walked to the window and stared out at the garden. The tall, purple irises swayed in the wind. A wild cat hunted along the edge of the rushes. Dianne felt like howling. Emotion flooded her chest, and she had to hug herself hard to keep it in. Alan came up behind her; Dianne felt his presence before he said a word.
“Do you hear the way she talks to Julia?” Dianne asked, tears rolling down her cheeks.
“I do,” Alan said.
With her back to Alan, Dianne covered her face and wept silently. Her body shook, and she felt his fingers brush her shoulder. His hands were big, and they felt strong and steady. She felt the heat of his fingers through her thin shirt. Across the room, Amy was telling Julia about the puppy at her house, imitating its bark so well, she sounded like a young dog.
“Julia’s never had a friend before,” Dianne whispered.
“I don’t think Amy has either,” Alan whispered back.
Amy began stopping by occasionally after school. By the second week she was coming every other afternoon. Julia liked Amy and seemed soothed by her. So often Julia seemed to be fighting demons in her head. She would wring her hands over and over. When Amy was there, she didn’t struggle as much. She seemed more placid and serene, and she smiled.
By two-thirty each day, Dianne had started glancing out the screen door of her studio, listening for Amy’s footsteps. Amy would run so fast across the marshy land, she sounded like a young filly in the homestretch, bursting through the screen door with a wild grin. She was a little hellion, awkward and messy. Dianne had taken to making lemonade, and she would set out the pitcher on a tray bearing glasses, oatmeal cookies, and square linen napkins.
Their second Tuesday together, they had their snack at the small table beside Julia’s chair. Sunlight streamed through the windows, and the marsh smelled warm and salty. They ate a cookie in silence, then, as was becoming their custom, talked for a few minutes before Dianne returned to work.
“I love these glasses,” Amy said, admiring one. Old juice glasses, they were enameled with tiny baskets overflowing with wildflowers. Each petal was a distinct, nearly microscopic brushstroke of scarlet, cobalt, cadmium yellow, or sap green.
“They were my grandmother’s,” Dianne said.
“All your things are … so careful.”
“How?” Dianne asked, tickled by the word.
“Everything is just so. You make things seem like they matter. Beautiful glasses, real cloth napkins, the way you tie your hair with a piece of marsh grass …”
“That’s just because I couldn’t find an elastic,” Dianne said.
“Hmm,” Amy said, glowing as she took a small bite of cookie. Dianne didn’t think of herself as careful: Sentimental was more like it. She liked things to remind her of other people. She had loved her grandmother, and she had loved Tim’s. Dorothea McIntosh had lived in a meadow, and she had tied her hair with long grass and flower stems. She had married a sea captain who brought jewels and rosewood back from a trip to India, and Dianne had her diamond and sapphire earrings tucked safely away.
Dianne held the cup close to Julia’s chin, guided the straw to her lips. The first day, Amy had tried to feed Julia a bite of cookie, and Dianne had had to explain that Julia could choke. She loved the way Amy accepted Julia’s reality without question, without trying to change it, make it better, conform to hers. Amy leaned forward with a napkin to dab away the lemonade that spilled down Julia’s chin.
“Thank you,” Dianne said.
“Rats, don’t thank me,” Amy said, blushing.
“Your mother doesn’t mind you coming over here?”
Amy shook her head.
“Does she work?” Dianne asked, trying to get a feel for what made Amy want to spend the afternoons away from home. Maybe her mother didn’t get home till five or six; probably Amy didn’t like staying in an empty house.
“No,” Amy said, looking down. “She’s home.”
They didn’t say anything for a while after that. There was a rhythm developing to their time together. They didn’t have to do anything to rush it along; it was growing at its own pace. Dianne tried not to ask herself why this meant so much to her, that a twelve-year-old girl from the neighborhood would want to hang around with her and Julia.
Amy was helping her see something. This was how life would be if Julia were normal: a mother and daughter going through their days together. Dianne was a mother with so much to give. Alan had put them together; Dianne was grateful, but sometimes she felt she was already beholden to him for too many things. And he was always there, even when she least expected him.
Last Wednesday she had driven over to the library to drop off her mother’s lunch. From behind the glass partition in the librarians’ office, Dianne spotted Alan jogging up the library’s wide front steps.
“It’s Wednesday,” Lucinda said, following her gaze. “He visits on his day off.”
“I forgot,” Dianne said, holding Julia.
“Just a minute,”