None of this was to say I had been unhappy, or that Mom and Dad had seemed unhappy to start all over again. What had been true? The majority of their parenting energy had gone into daughter number one, and daughter number two, the universe’s big surprise, had received the leftovers.

At times in my life I’ve considered being a leftover a bonus, but now, with Wendy’s senior photo smiling up at me from the cover of the thickest scrapbook, I wondered what it would have felt like to have this kind of attention showered on me. I really didn’t know.

Dave yelled up to tell me he was finished, and I saw it was almost time to walk over to the school with the form so I could pick up the girls. I replaced the memorabilia in the bottom drawer, thanked Dave who handed me keys and locked up after both of us.

The afternoon had progressed from warm to hot, and by the time I got there I wasn’t sorry to enter the hallowed halls and head straight for the office. Everyone was on the phone, so I took a seat, enveloped in nostalgia. I’d spent hours of my school days in an office much like this one, waiting for a reprimand. The nuns had liked me, but I had tried their patience.

When the administrator finally finished his phone call, he looked over the form and promised we were all set. “Would you like to peek into the first grade room while you wait? You can watch your niece. Noelle, right? That would be Mrs. English’s room, number six on the left.”

I started down the hall. The door to six was open, and when the teacher saw me, she motioned me inside. Noelle had been right about the hair as well as the name. This Mrs. English was an older woman, with lovely gray hair that shone with just the faintest tinge of blue. The children were sitting on a rug at her feet as she read a story about a cat named Ringtail who wanted to be a raccoon. I lounged beside the door and watched. Some of the children had turned as I entered, but not my niece. Her attention was riveted on the pictures in the book and the story.

To my surprise Noelle raised her hand, and the teacher recognized her. “That picture shows Ringtail chasing a butterfly. There’s no butterfly in the story.”

“Not yet.”

“The picture can tell the story before the words do?”

“It can,” Mrs. English said.

“Can somebody tell a story with pictures and no words? That would be okay?”

They continued the conversation as the other children started to move and whisper to each other, but Noelle was so focused she didn’t notice. It was the most I’d ever heard her speak.

“I think you should try one yourself,” Mrs. English said, just as a bell rang.

As the children filed out of the room, she came over to speak to me, although Noelle didn’t, even though she’d finally noticed I was there.