Amelia marveled at Sadie’s seeming adaptability, but she wondered if someday those troubled times, with all their fears and stresses, would surface to haunt her. Amelia brushed away such thoughts, brushed off her slacks, and rose. “Do I see wildflowers growing in the grove? Come on, Sadie, let’s have a look at them.”

They ambled thirty feet into the poplar grove, where red, lavender, yellow, and white wildflowers, most of which Amelia did not recognize, spread in clusters. Carefully, so as not to crush the flowers, they zigzagged to the end of the grove, where harsh desert sand brought the blanket of color to an abrupt halt.

Amelia leaned against a tree trunk, closed her eyes, and felt the heaviness of her lids. It had been a long day, and she was tired. She listened to the wind whispering as it swept toward them, and opened her eyes. In the crystalline air, cloud castles loomed above shadowed, snow-peaked mountains. Happy to be here, in this place, on this day, with Miriam and Sadie and even Ben, she lifted her face to the sky.

“Sit here with me, Sadie.” Amelia patted the earth beneath a tree. “Feel the wind? On old maps, the north wind is depicted as a man with plump cheeks straining to blow the winds of the world.”

Solemnly, the little girl looked up at her. “Really?”

“When we get home, I’ll show you in a book I have. The wind has different names in different places, and sometimes it even has different names for specific things in the same place—like in China tiu means to move with the wind like a tree, yoa means to float on the breeze, and fung can mean either the wind or a person’s breath.”

“You mean the wind, the plain old wind, has so many different names?” Sadie lifted a hand toward the breeze. “Hello, wind.” She turned trusting eyes to Amelia. “You know a lot about a lot of things, Grandma.”

Amelia felt a thrill every time the child called her Grandma. “And in Germany, when the wind blows in a certain way, they call it a foehn wind.” She puffed out her cheeks, and Sadie giggled. “They say when a foehn wind blows, people go a little bit crazy and do silly things.”

“Like what, Grandma?”

Amelia didn’t want to say that the police did not welcome a foehn wind, that on nights when a foehn wind blew crime increased. “Oh, things like, well, someone might just suddenly begin to dance in the street, or sing for no reason.”

Sadie laughed. “What other places call the wind funny names?”

“In Sweden frisk vinds are gale-level winds, and China’s first autumn breeze is called the sz. Can you imagine, when September comes, people wait for a weatherman to announce a breeze called sz?”