Dela shrugged, keeping kind eyes on me. “Happens. Sometimes outta the blue like that. One minute their accusin’ you of bein’ in cahoots with Hitler. The next minute, peace.” She got up, walked around her desk, sat in the chair next to me and leaned in to grab my hand. She held it between us and said softly, “First one’s always the hardest, girl. Gotta say, plain truth, second one isn’t a whole lot better. We know ’em. We care for ’em. We give ’em what we can to make their time with us as best as it can be. It isn’t easy for them to be in here. And one thing we give ’em that they don’t know they’re gettin’ is how hard it is to find it in us to be able to say good-bye.”

I heard her. She was saying the right things.

But I looked to the window, wondering how on earth I could spend my days at Dove House without Mrs. McMurphy.

It was raining outside, gray, cold and windy, but I didn’t see that.

I saw Mrs. McMurphy walking down the front walk in her coat with her umbrella on a sunny day.

It was no longer funny.

Right then, it pierced my heart and made it bleed.

I felt a tug at my hand and my eyes drifted to Dela.

“You with me?” she asked.

“They’ll all go.” My mouth was still speaking for me in that distant way.

“Eventually, we all go, honey.”

She was right.

Mrs. Osborn.

Mrs. Porter.

God. Mr. Dennison.

“Not many folk have gifts like you and me.”

I focused again on Dela at her words.

“We get it,” she said, still gentle, but also now firm. “We got the strength others don’t have not ever to show to them we know they’ll go but we’ll suffer the good-bye. We just keep on givin’ ’em the good. That’s our job. That’s our gift. You with me?”

Somewhere in my dazed brain I understood she was challenging me.

And somewhere in my dazed brain I wondered if she actually saw that strength in me or if she wanted me to reach for it, believe in me, grab hold and give that to the folks I helped look after.

Perhaps the Amelia Hathaway my parents raised wouldn’t actually have that gift Dela was talking about.

But the Amelia Hathaway I’d become in spite of that definitely had it.

So it wasn’t just my mouth that replied, “I’m with you, Dela.”

I saw relief flash in her eyes, knew then she thought this sad event, like it had probably with others, would have me leaving.

But truly, if I did, who would Mr. Dennison flirt with?

I tipped my head toward the wall. “Are they upset?” I asked.