Chapter 12: Does Ours Mean Me?

Inez allowed me one bedtime story.

She stood at the bottom of the stairs with her arms folded and her apron straight.

"Twenty minutes, dear," she said. "She needs her sleep."

I climbed the steps with a picture book and a heart that felt like a wet sponge.

Gil was in the truck outside, with the notebook locked in the glove compartment.

The guardianship paper was folded in his wallet.

He had promised me, in the parking lot, with his hand on his chest, that he would not sign it.

I believed him.

I believed him the way I believe a shop teacher who says the saw is off: completely, from across the room.

Birdie's room at Inez's was the old sewing room, with a daybed and a quilt of faded stars.

She was in the unicorn pajamas, sitting up against the pillows with her knees under her chin.

"Did you bring the pig?" she asked.

"I brought the pig."

I read her the whole book in my voices, the deep wolf, the shaking grandmother and the pig with the cold.

By the end of the second page she was laughing so hard that she had to hold her stomach.

"Say 'I'll huff and I'll puff,' again," she begged.

"I'll huff and I'll puff and I'll sniffle a little."

"That's the best one."

When the book was finished I closed it and tucked the quilt under her feet.

She was quiet.

I waited, with both hands on the cover, and the card in my pocket.

"Mom," she said at last. "I heard Grandma on the phone."

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