Chapter 20: Family Day

The kindergarten classroom had twenty small chairs and one very large crowd.

Philip stood against the back wall in a suit, holding a paper bag of cookies he had been told to bring.

My mother sat on a chair built for a six-year-old with her knees together and her handbag on them.

Caleb had come in a baseball cap, and a teacher's aide had stared at him twice and then decided to say nothing.

Douglas arrived last, out of breath, with a cardboard box under his arm.

"I got held up at the bank," he said.

"Sit," I said.

He sat on the floor beside my chair, because there was nowhere else, and his knee touched mine.

Neither of us moved it.

The teacher clapped her hands.

"Today each of our friends will introduce their family. Polly, you're first."

Polly walked to the front of the room in her good dress and her rain boots.

She held a piece of paper in both fists.

"This is my family," she said. "There are eleven."

She held up the paper.

It was a drawing of a great many people, all the same height, with enormous hands.

"This is my mommy. She makes bread."

A few of the parents smiled.

"This is my Grandma, who has a lot of rings, and she let me wear one."

My mother looked at her own hand and then at the ceiling.

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