“You’re a very smart girl. This is exactly the weight of the diamonds I carried to this country from Algeria.” He reached for the pail, which he set on his knee, and then, to Madeleine’s great shock, he proceeded to swallow all five frogs, one after the other. Madeleine scarcely breathed as she watched. He wasn’t a monster, but now she was convinced he knew magic. “If you cannot protect yourself, you are at their mercy,” her grandfather said. He burped up all five frogs, each alive and perfect, then he returned the bucket to Madeleine so that she could replace the creatures into the mud at the edge of the pond. As they went back to the house, they held hands. Each felt fortunate to be in the company of the other. The rest of the world and its cruelties didn’t matter as much when they were together.

Everything was covered with ice that winter and the last time Madeleine saw her grandfather he couldn’t get out of bed. He hadn’t eaten for weeks, though Madeleine had brought him sugar cookies every day. She sat beside him, pale and unassuming, her face pinched with worry.

“I think I made a mistake,” he told her one day when they were together. The old man found Madeleine quietly endearing. He patted her head, for he had come to care deeply for her, and he knew that she cared for him in return; he had also come to see his past quite differently and had regrets that he hadn’t expected to have. He wondered why it was only when you were at the end of your life that it was possible to view it with honesty and truth. “You cannot hide who you are without doing great damage. Just remember that you’re my granddaughter. Think about others before you think of yourself.”

They said the wrong prayers when he was buried, but he would likely not have minded. The meaning was the same.

God our Father, Your power brings us to birth, Your providence guides our lives, and by Your command we return to dust.

He left Madeleine everything, but because she was a minor, her aunt took charge and sent her to a convent school. She was sad at first, for she was in mourning, but she soon came to love the rigor of her classes. She studied Latin and Greek and was a natural student, a favorite of the sisters. She was told early on that she should consider joining the order, and it had always given her great pleasure to succeed as a teacher who was known for her kind heart and her extraordinary patience, learned, perhaps, from the time she had spent with her grandfather.