Her features drawn with amazing delicacy, as if the artist didn’t want to press too hard against the page because doing so might hurt her. Lovely, clean lines that suddenly disappeared when it came to her hair and then the gracefulness was replaced by angry thick black strokes that crept toward her cheek like the hands of a gloved robber. They were random and brutal and frightening and in the corner of each drawing was a name. Lionel. LIONel.

The bouncing ball started bouncing again. I wished I had never opened that envelope. I quickly stuffed the drawings back in, but the bouncing got bigger. And when I looked up again, she was there, standing in the doorway.

Looking through me.

She didn’t say anything that night, but her eyes were different. They were dull, diluted. Like when my grandmother mixed too much milk into her tea. It was as if something inside of her was frozen and I wished I could take her out into the sun, like a grape popsicle melting and running down my arm, but nothing I did made it any better. She still took me swimming, but didn’t bring her sketchbook. Instead, she sat on the bleachers, legs crossed at the ankle and hands folded in her lap. She stared vacantly down at the deck of the pool, counting squares, towels, puddles, I did not know. I did what I could to make her smile. I jumped and splashed and made silly faces. She turned to face me, but it never seemed like she saw me. I didn’t know what else to do so I stopped doing anything.

We went about our routine. I came home from school and we made our meals. I stood beside her peeling potatoes or snapping green beans or ripping lettuce. When I first arrived, she taught me how to do things in the kitchen with her hand over mine, but now I was on my own. Few words passed between us. We ate at the table in that stark white kitchen, both of us lost in our thoughts. If I accidentally touched her hand, she would jump back.