“Please don’t leave me.” The gravel that usually tinged her words was gone. Now there was just clean and pure fear. It danced across her face and made her lower lip tremble.

“Can you try and stand up?”

“I can’t. I need my medicine. Bring me my medicine.” But she gripped him even tighter and then pulled him close. “Thank you.” She whispered fiercely, so that even Therese could hear, the tremors from her lip now extending across her entire face. “Thank you.” She repeated more quietly and then she let him go.

He ran to the bathroom, and when he walked back in, they all turned to him. Therese clutched her empty mug to herself; Matilda continued to swirl her fingers inside the bowl; and Barbara, still on the floor, reached for him.

He stopped for just a second, or maybe it was longer. He stopped and looked around the kitchen, his eyes finally resting on his mother. And at that very minute, Therese knew without a doubt.

He would always take care of her and that there never had been any other choice.

Franny

The paper ripped.

I was scribbling too hard. And I didn’t care. And it made me feel better.

“Why did you change your mind?” Evelyn asked.

We were sitting in her bedroom, making a get-well card for Mrs. Ficsh, who had been out sick for three days.

“About what?” I crumpled the paper and threw it into the trashcan. I took another sheet but, again, the same angry scribbles emerged so I decided just to write a message.

“About figuring out why your mother left?”

If I extended the bottom of the T in “get,” I could turn it into a W for “well.”

“Because it doesn’t matter anymore.”

Evelyn was decorating hers with pink and red hearts, which she was outlining in glue. She took a bottle of glitter and sprinkled it over the card. “Why not?”

I didn’t answer; I just kept coloring in my letters. I drew them in blue, layering them like fat clouds in the sky.

“I promised I would help.” Evelyn looked up, pink glitter sprinkled in her hair.

“I’m okay now.” My picture looked empty, so I drew a big yellow sun in the corner with rays that intersected into the letters.

She stopped coloring. “You are?”