Nobody sees it until it stops.
Mrs. Whitaker saw it. Every single Thursday.
“Okay,” I whispered. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay. For Willa.” I folded the little piece of paper back up and handed it to her. “But I have one condition.”
She raised her eyebrows. “A condition? You’re negotiating with me?”
“I learned from the best.”
She laughed. A real laugh. I had never heard her laugh like that before, loud and surprised, with her
head tipped back.
“All right,” she said. “What’s your condition?”
“You come to her graduation,” I said. “In May. You fly back from Oregon and you sit next to me
in the bleachers and you watch her get her diploma. And when she gets to college, you visit her. And when she designs her first real house, you come see it.”
Mrs. Whitaker stopped laughing. She looked at me for a long moment.
“That’s three conditions,” she said.
