“You’ve seen it already?” I asked. Alexis and Eric were curled up together on Aunt Linda’s ratty loveseat, wearing pajamas just like me. Juliet had requested a “slumber party at Aunty Tabby’s house” tonight, so I’d pulled out all the stops—we’d had pizza delivered and played a rousing game of Twister and spent a pretty intense hour building a castle together out of Play-Doh.

Now we were on the get Juliet to fall asleep part of the night.

“Of course we’ve seen it,” my sister said, handing Eric a bowl of popcorn. “We sent it to all of our teacher friends. They were super excited to donate. As were we.”

I looked over at the lovebirds on the loveseat. “You guys.”

Eric shook his head. “Don’t you guys me, Aunty Tabby. You send me and your sister school supplies every year for our new students. And you very graciously edited that god-awful video I tried to make that one year about my classroom service projects.”

“For free,” Alexis added.

Juliet was playing with my keyboard, and I was trying to make sure she didn’t accidentally delete my hard drive.

“It was an honor and it was adorable,” I pointed out. “I personally think the world would be a better place if more people got to see how cute it is when third graders decide to make soup and sandwiches for nurses working the night shift at the hospital down the block.”

“And it was truly appreciated,” Eric said. “You always support our classrooms no matter where you are in the world. It’s an honor to support this.” He inclined his head toward the window behind him, indicating the now clean empty lot in its pre-park stage.

“Also, that video of Eddie and Alice talking about Annie in her Santa suit is pretty convincing,” Alexis said. “We showed Juliet before coming over here.”

“Mr. Eddie has a cat,” Juliet told me. “I want to draw a picture of her for him.”

I kissed the top of her head. “He would love that, sweetheart. Mr. Eddie needs a little extra help right now, so I think pictures would bring a smile to his face.”

Juliet nodded somberly at this task, in that way children seemed to so easily accept the concepts of both helping and being helped.

While she was briefly distracted by hitting the space bar on my keyboard one hundred times in a row, I slid my phone out and logged into the GoFundMe page I’d set up for the park. It had been live for only a day but there was already close to a thousand dollars in there. I scrolled down the list, recognized not only Alexis and Eric but a few of their teacher friends. Kathleen and my dad. Members of Kathleen’s book club. A couple local businesses and nonprofits. The Buddhist temple on Eleventh Street and the rec center where Rowan worked.