“Oh no,” they said.

“But you guys should come try those cupcakes sometime. They’re really good. You can get chocolate or vanilla flavored.”

“Okay.”

It seemed to me like everything was going great until they finished eating and picked up their lunches and left.

It was okay. I ate my sandwich by myself. I guess I ate even faster because without other people I wasn’t talking so much. Except to Cecilia Payne, in my head. If we can figure out the stars, then why are other people so confusing? I didn’t hear an answer, but a narrow square of sunlight coming in through the lunchroom blinds sat in the seat across from me.

When I got home from school, Nonny set a plate of marmalade toast on the coffee table in the front room, next to the papers she was reading for her new online college classes. (“Thank goodness for scholarships and supportive career counselors,” she’d said.) She was on the phone, holding it up against her ear with her shoulder, but she’d made toast especially for me. I wasn’t sick, but I sure needed some marmalade toast.

I got out my math book while Nonny was on the phone. I worked on my worksheet while Nonny said “hmm,” and “oh wow.” The other person was telling some kind of story. Sitting on the couch listening to her made me feel like I’d taken a time machine back to when she was in high school. She talked to people on the phone a lot back then, the same way she did now. Like dozens of people knew that she was the one to call when they had questions or problems, and after they talked to her everything was a little better.

Nonny didn’t say very much herself. Sometimes she asked a question. The words she did use always seemed to be exactly right, like they were some kind of magic healing spell.

How did she learn to say those perfect magic-spell words? Maybe it was the questions she asked? Or was there a special way she told the other person she was listening?

Nonny stayed quiet for a long time, and I thought maybe that was part of the spell. She did something in her mind when she was quiet, some special way of thinking or listening, and that made her know the right words to say when she finally said them. There had to be a way to learn her trick, whatever it was.

Most days I’m super-good at doing my homework right away, but today I listened to her instead of focusing on my math. After she said goodbye to the person on the phone, she put her cell in her back pocket, and came and sat by me on the couch.

“So how did the genius do at school today?” she asked.

Of course, I didn’t have the right words to answer, so instead I took a bite of toast. Nonny knows how to do toast perfectly, where the bread is the exact right level of crispiness, and the marmalade is spread thick over each crumb and corner.