Kaylin noted the new door down the hall; it was beside her own room. On it was something that looked suspiciously like the basket in which Mrs. Erickson put the baking she brought to the Halls of Law. Kaylin wondered if baking would still be done, still be brought in, when she no longer had the children to entertain; she wouldn’t need stories of her daily life to bring back to them.

“This is your room,” Helen told Mrs. Erickson. “I am always present; if you call me, I will answer. Kaylin’s is next door, if you feel calling me will cause discomfort.”

Mrs. Erickson nodded, and then reached out for the door’s handle. She opened the door slowly. “This...isn’t a room,” she whispered. Kaylin looked over her shoulder; she could see grass and wildflowers, a blend of white and green and violet.

“It is one of my rooms, Imelda. Just beyond the field—you can see it from here—is where you would be living should you choose to stay.”

Kaylin did not expect tears, but Mrs. Erickson shed them, as if unaware that they were falling. She turned to Helen. “You knew?”

“No. Not until you opened the door.”

“This was the home we wanted, when we were young. A home of our own, not a home that was only mine. My mother said—she always said—that no matter how much we loved the homes of our birth, we would outgrow them; we would need to stretch and experience life before we could make a home of our own.”

“You have experienced much of life—and death—Imelda. If the dream does not live up to those you had in your youth, this room will change; it will accommodate you. It always will. That is my gift and my responsibility.”

Jamal watched in silence, and then a smile graced his face, a moment of deep and abiding joy.

Mrs. Erickson turned to him; a deeper, older joy had transformed her features. That and tears. She knelt in front of Jamal, and for only this moment, he seemed to Kaylin to be the older of the two—as if his apparent youth had somehow transmuted her apparent age into something lighter, something precious.

She held out her arms, and he came to her, although she couldn’t touch him.

“Goodbye, Jamal, my dearest friend, my brother, my child.”

“We’ll wait for you,” he said. “We’ll wait. Bring us lots of stories. But not too quickly, okay? This is your time now. Yours.”

She nodded.

The door closed as Kaylin watched.

“Let them have this moment on their own,” Helen said. “We’ll have moments of our own in the future. It is how history is built.” She paused, and then added, “Thank you. You were, of course, right.”

Kaylin didn’t pretend to misunderstand.

“I have always been grateful that you came to me—but even I did not expect so much. You have been a tenant, yes, but a gift as well. When you at last depart, I will always remember you. And now I will go inform the cohort—and consider a welcome dinner.”