“This is for you.” James shows Birdie her baby quilt. It’s forty red and white squares all sewn together. Twenty red and twenty white. I know because I used to count them. It was my baby quilt Nana made before her fingers got too sore to sew. I gave it to Birdie when she was born. There are five long rows of eight squares. In the middle of each red square Nana sewed a white heart, and in the middle of the white squares there’s a red heart.

“You funny,” Birdie says, laughing to see him with her quilt.

“And look what else I remembered.”

James reaches deep into the bag and brings out five toothbrushes, all different colors. The fifth one is the one Mom keeps for James when he stays overnight.

The next thing James takes out of the bag is small enough to fit in his hand. He gives it to Dad, who studies it carefully, as if he hasn’t seen it before.

“Isn’t that your father’s compass?” Nana asks Dad.

“I saw it on your dresser and I remembered you said your father gave it to you,” James explains to my father.

Dad looks like he wants to say something to James, but no words come out of his mouth.

Next, James takes out the wooden Honor Box with the slit on top to put money in.

Mom is sitting on the couch, and James puts it on her lap.

“We only had ten minutes. I snuck out the front door and ran down the driveway to get it for you.”

Like Dad, Mom is silent as she stands and sets the Honor Box on the mantel over the fireplace.

“The last thing is for you, Henry,” James says. “I saw it open on the couch and I thought you might want it.”

James takes the M volume of The World Book Encyclopedia out of the bag.

“Thank you,” I say, hugging the heavy book the same way Birdie hugs her big and red books from the library.

—

It’s much later in the day, after supper, when the side door opens and Uncle Lincoln comes in. He has black hair like me, and his ears stick out from the sides of his head. I used to want ears like Lincoln’s, because I thought they would give me special hearing powers. I wanted to hear grubs eating grass, voles tunneling under the snow, and sap running in the trees.

“Hi, Mom,” Lincoln says to Nana.

“What brings you here, Lincoln? Any news?”

There’s a pause and we all wait to hear what Lincoln has to say. It takes time for Lincoln to get his words out. I think he’s like me, deciding say it, don’t say it, say it, don’t say it. Dad says Lincoln has always chosen his words carefully.

“The town well is drying up, and other wells, too.”