Chapters (59)
- Cover
- About the Author
- Praise
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- January
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- February
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- March
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- April
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Twenty
- Twenty-One
- Twenty-Two
- Twenty-Three
- Twenty-Four
- Twenty-Five
- May
- Twenty-Six
- Twenty-Seven
- Twenty-Eight
- Twenty-Nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-One
- June
- Thirty-Two
- Thirty-Three
- Thirty-Four
- Thirty-Five
- Thirty-Six
- Thirty-Seven
- Thirty-Eight
- Thirty-Nine
- Forty
- July
- Forty-One
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgments
- Author’s Note
- Ladies of the House - Reader’s Guide
- Questions For Discussion
- Excerpt
“Oh, yes,” he laughed, and reclined, settling in. And just like that we were back, just us, Ari’s name like the smoke from an extinguished flame. And for the next hour, I let his voice silence all others.
Thirty-One
In the back of a second-grade classroom, below a corkboard with posters of Harriet Tubman and Cal Ripken—both famous Marylanders, to be sure, yet one slightly more accomplished than the other—Bo and I had contorted ourselves on plastic chairs built for much smaller bodies. This was the final event we had planned for Literacy Week. Over the course of the seven days, we’d met with community organizers and teachers, school counselors and adult day-care workers, and I’d come away with a notebook full of appropriation ideas and tasks to complete. Yes, I found myself saying thankfully, gladly. We can help get your arts center a new HVAC system. Yes, absolutely the women and children’s shelter should have a library. Yes, Miles can certainly help you with a letter of recommendation for the Naval Academy. Here’s my email address. Here, take my card.
In the front of the room, the children sat crisscross-applesauce on the reading rug, with only minor interruptions shushed out from Miss Brown behind her teacher’s desk. As the students listened to Miles finish a story about a bunny who started a book club, Bo showed me headlines emailed from the press office. One of the programs we were promoting—1000 Books Before Kindergarten—was trending. And Miles’s reaction to meeting Charlie, the rescued pit bull who let children read to him at the Elliott City Library, had even gone viral. “Miles is a meme,” whispered Bo. We pounded fists, proud that Literacy Week seemed to have legs.
When Miles was done, the children applauded and Miss Brown asked if they had any questions for their senator.
Bo and I observed a young scholar rise to her knees, begging Miles to call on her. “If you weren’t you, who would you be?” the girl asked. Her school-mandated polo was royal purple and only partially tucked. Her sneakers were new and her pants just a bit short.
Miles said that he would be himself, an answer that was both perfectly him and perfectly appropriate for a classroom full of seven-year-olds. “What’s your name, and what do you want to be when you grow up?” he asked her.
“Well, sir,” she started, bouncing her bottom on her heels, sounding very much like she’d given this a lot of thought. “My name is Fiona. I want to be a doctor and a ballerina and a mommy and a senator.”
Bo and I shared a discreet laugh. Miles, though, slid from his chair to join the children on the rug, and nodded. “Those are noble professions,” he said. “I want to ask the children here, what do all those jobs have in common?”
“Money!” several yelled.
“Helping!” said others.