Sometime later I watch Maree sling her backpack onto her shoulders, brown hair pulled into a smooth beehive that would have made my mother proud. I can hear her now. It’s perfect, Claire bear. Do you know how long it took me to learn the beehive? You’re just a natural at everything. I sniff, blink a few times.

The girl pulls a crumpled piece of paper out of her backpack. “You want to teach guitar, and I want to learn. Here.” She pulls out a pencil, writes something on the back of the paper. “You have something about it in your notebook ’cause I saw you write it down when I showed you before.”

I take the paper: it’s a flyer—mine, it looks like—about teaching guitar lessons. The little girl has scribbled her name, spelled M-a-r-e-e, and a short note in her childish scrawl: Dont forget! I want to be your guitar student.

“Um.” I read the flyer again along with her note. My mother taught me to play. Some of my fondest memories with her include the times spent together hunched over our guitars in the middle of our living room. I was never very good. A fluttering of excitement builds in my chest at the idea. Teach this little girl, Maree, how to play the guitar. I hesitate even though I realize that I want to very much, because the real question is am I able to? Will my system hold up to a situation where someone else is depending on me to get things right? I can feel the impossibility of it in the tightness of my throat battling with the tingle in my fingers at the thought of teaching again in whatever capacity. And the guitar? All I remember about the guitar is what my mother taught me in her imperfect way all those years ago. Will it be enough?

A thought makes my feet feel like they hardly touch the floor: I’m a teacher. It’s what I love. I’ll find a way to make it work.

The girl has started to spin slowly in circles, hands out on either side like she’s trying not to tumble backward from the weight of her backpack. “Maree.” I read her name in my notebook, but saying it seems to surprise her, because she stops spinning so abruptly she nearly falls sideways.

“You remembered my name?” she says.

“Well, I think you might be a tough one to forget.”

She nods seriously. “I am. My dad says so. And he also says that I’m a real handful.”

I laugh quietly, filled with a sudden warmth that minimizes the sharpness of my fingernail pressing into my palm, reminding me to write this down.

“So will you teach me guitar?”