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Dana had counted the doors without meaning to. She had not stood in the hallway and pointed at them, because counting doors aloud would have made Holly want to count too, and Holly’s counting still tended to become a cheerful collection of whatever numbers she happened to remember. Dana had simply noticed them while following Jennifer through the house. A door for one room, another farther along, a narrow cupboard with a brass knob, the bathroom door, and one that Jennifer had passed twice without opening. That last one had settled into Dana’s mind and stayed there. She knew what it probably was. Beds had to be somewhere, and Jennifer had already shown them the places where people sat and ate and read, but not where she slept. Dana had been thinking about that for several minutes, not because she was afraid to ask but because a bedroom was different.
At home, people knocked. Even Mama knocked sometimes, though Mama could come in anyway because she was Mama. Dana had rules about her own things. Holly did too, although Holly’s rules changed according to whether she wanted the thing somebody else was holding. A bedroom was somebody’s room in a way that a kitchen was not somebody’s kitchen. Dana finally left the chair where she had been sitting and crossed to Jennifer, who was returning a book to a shelf. Holly saw her go and came after her immediately, Thumper dangling upside down from one hand by a long grey leg. Dana waited until Jennifer looked down. “Aunt Jennifer?” she said. “Can I see your bedroom?” She paused, because the next part mattered. “If you say I can.”
Jennifer’s face changed in the small way Dana already knew meant she was pleased rather than surprised. She did not laugh, and that helped. Adults sometimes laughed when Dana was being serious, even when they were being kind, and then she had to decide whether she had said something funny without knowing it. Jennifer only rested one hand against the spine of the book she had just shelved and asked, “You want to see my room?” Dana nodded. Holly, who had reached them and was leaning against Dana’s side, looked from one face to the other and announced, “Room,” because that was the word she had caught. Dana glanced toward the closed door and then back to Jennifer. “Bedrooms are private,” she explained. “You don’t just go in. You gotta ask the person first.”
Jennifer gave a slow nod as though Dana had told her something sensible and useful. “That sounds like a good rule.” Dana’s shoulders loosened. “So can I?” she asked again, because agreement with the rule was not the same as permission. “You can,” Jennifer said. “I’d be happy to show you.” Holly lifted Thumper against her chest and said, “Me too,” with the grave certainty of someone who had no intention of being left behind. Dana looked at Jennifer on Holly’s behalf. Jennifer bent enough to meet Holly’s eyes and added, “You too, sweetheart.” Holly smiled so quickly that her cheeks rounded, then turned at once toward the hallway, ready to begin before anyone else had moved.
Dana caught the back of Holly’s little cardigan before she could set off in the wrong direction. “Wait. Aunt Jennifer goes first.” Holly looked down at the fist holding her cardigan and then up at Dana with a faintly offended crease between her brows. “I walk.” “You are walking,” Dana assured her. “But it’s her room.” Holly seemed to consider this, or perhaps only the tone, then tucked Thumper under one arm and waited. Jennifer led them down the short hall. Dana stayed close enough to see her hand settle on the brass knob she had noticed before. The door opened inward with the slight scrape of wood over an old floor, and Jennifer stepped aside rather than immediately crossing the threshold. “There you are.”
Dana could see the foot of a bed, a patch of quilt, the edge of a rug and a low shelf full of books. She still did not go in. Permission to see the room and permission to enter it felt like two steps, and Jennifer had only finished the first one. Holly did not share the distinction. She leaned forward as if the room had acquired a string tied around her middle. Dana caught her sleeve this time. Jennifer noticed, smiled, and went inside. “Come on in, both of you.” Only then did Dana step over the sill. Holly came after, small shoes making a quick pair of taps on the floorboards, and Dana released her sleeve once they were properly inside.
The room was smaller than Dana had expected without ever having decided how large she expected it to be. She stopped close to the door and looked rather than moving. The bed stood beneath the sloping part of the ceiling, covered with a quilt whose colors had softened until no one patch shouted louder than another. Books were stacked on the bedside table and fitted into shelves along the wall, not neat in the same way the books downstairs had been neat. One had been left open facedown on a chair with a cardigan draped over the chair back, and Dana immediately looked at Jennifer because Mama did not like books left that way. Jennifer followed her eyes. “I know,” she said quietly. “Bad habit.”
Dana accepted the confession. Near the window stood a battered wooden desk with more paper on it, pencils in a mug, a pair of reading glasses and a little dish holding buttons, coins and two guitar picks. A brown guitar case leaned upright between the desk and the wall, scarred along the edges. There were framed photographs on the dresser, more photographs tucked against the mirror, a hairbrush, a plain bottle of lotion, a chipped cup holding hairpins, and beside the bed a pair of slippers turned toward the room as though Jennifer had just stepped out of them. Dana’s gaze traveled slowly from one thing to another. This was what she had wanted. Not a special room for showing people, but all the things Jennifer had put where she could reach them without asking anyone else.
Holly had already found the quilt. She put one hand flat against the side of the bed, rubbed the fabric between her fingers and said, “Soft.” Then she noticed the slippers. Thumper fell onto the rug while Holly squatted, picked up one slipper with both hands, set it on the floor and tried to push her right foot into it without taking off her shoe. Her foot disappeared only as far as the toes before the slipper bent sideways. Dana turned sharply. “Holly-baby, no. That’s Aunt Jennifer’s.” Holly froze with one foot half inside, looking more puzzled than guilty. Jennifer crouched and steadied her with a hand at the elbow.
“It’s all right. They are mine, though. My feet are a little bigger than yours.” Holly looked down at the slipper, then at Jennifer’s feet as if comparison might settle the matter. “Big,” she concluded. Jennifer laughed softly. “A bit.” Holly withdrew her shoe, placed the slipper roughly beside its mate and gave it two pats. “There.” Dana watched to make certain it stayed there, then turned back toward the room. Jennifer rose and said, “You can look at anything you like. Just ask me before you pick up something breakable.” Dana nodded with complete seriousness. Holly nodded too, although she had clearly understood only that everybody else was nodding.
Dana moved first toward the dresser because the photographs were at her height if she stood close. The nearest one showed Jennifer much younger, sitting between an older woman and an older man on a porch. Dana knew their faces from other pictures and from stories. “Mama April and Papa Brandon?” she asked. Jennifer came beside her. “That’s them.” Dana leaned closer without touching the frame. April had one arm around Jennifer’s shoulders. Brandon sat with his hands together between his knees, looking toward the camera with a patient expression that Dana had already decided she liked. “Were you little?” Dana asked. “Not very little there. I was in my teens.” Dana glanced up at Jennifer and then back at the photograph.
Teenagers were grown in some ways and not grown in others; Dana knew that because teenagers were sometimes allowed to do things children could not do, yet adults still told them what time to come home. She accepted the category without pursuing it. Another photograph caught her attention because the person in it was unmistakable. “Mama.” Her finger lifted and stopped before the glass. Glenda sat cross-legged on grass beside Jennifer, younger than Dana knew her but still herself. “That is Mama.” Jennifer’s voice warmed around the words. Holly heard it and came trotting over, leaving Thumper on the rug again.
She pressed both hands against the dresser edge, stood on her toes and demanded, “Mama?” Jennifer lifted the frame just enough to angle it down for her. Holly stared, delighted. “Mama!” she said again, louder, then kissed two fingers and planted them against the glass.
Dana smiled, but another photograph had already taken her attention. It was tucked behind the corner of the mirror rather than framed, and only half of it showed. She could see her own hair. “Is that me?” Jennifer reached up and drew the photograph free. Dana and Holly were sitting together on a blanket, Dana with a book open across her lap and Holly staring somewhere outside the picture while clutching Thumper against her chest.
Dana took the photograph only after Jennifer held it toward her. “That’s me,” she said, then looked at the smaller child beside her. “And Holly-baby.” Holly craned upward. “Me.” “Yeah, that’s you.” “Why’s it in your room?” Dana asked. Jennifer answered, “Because I like seeing you both.” Dana looked at the picture again. “When you wake up?” “Sometimes.” “And when you go to bed?” “Sometimes then too.” Dana held the photograph more carefully. Holly reached for it, and Dana moved it away before the toddler’s fingers could close around the corner. “Wait. I’m looking.” Holly made a frustrated sound in her throat, but Jennifer found another photograph, one of Holly alone, sitting in somebody’s lap with Thumper shoved against her cheek. “Here’s another one.”
Holly took that offering with both hands and looked at it from a distance of about three inches. “Baby,” she whispered. “That’s you as a baby,” Dana said. Holly’s face tightened at once. “No baby.” Dana sighed in the manner of an older sister carrying a difficult burden. “You were. You’re little now, but you were littler.” Holly shook her head hard enough to make her curls bounce. “No.” Jennifer did not intervene. Dana looked at her for support and found only a smile being carefully contained.
The bed drew Dana next because she had finally reached the question that had been sitting underneath all the others. “Do you sleep right here?” Jennifer nodded. “Right there.” Dana looked from the pillow to the window and back. “Every night?” “When I’m home.” Dana stepped closer to the bed but did not sit. She put one hand on the quilt where Holly had touched it earlier. “Did you sleep here when you were little too?” Jennifer’s expression settled into something quieter. “In this room, yes.” Dana looked up immediately. “This same room?” “This same room.” The bed suddenly became less important than the walls around it. Dana turned in place. “When you were my size?” “
When I was your size too.” Dana stared toward the window, then at the door they had entered through. Jennifer being four was hard enough to imagine. Jennifer being four exactly here made it more possible and stranger at once. “Did Mama April come in here?” “All the time.” “And Papa Brandon?” “Him too.” Dana’s fingers stroked the quilt once without her noticing. “For bedtime?” “For bedtime, for mornings, for when I was sick, for when I wanted something, for when they wanted something. It was my room, but I wasn’t banishing them from it.”
Dana frowned slightly because banishing was a word she knew from stories but not one she expected in a bedroom. Jennifer softened it for her. “They asked or knocked when they could. Same idea as you.” Dana brightened. The rule was older than she was.
Holly had abandoned the baby photograph and was now trying to climb onto the bed. She planted her chest against the mattress, lifted one knee and pushed with the other foot, but the height defeated her. She grunted, slid back down, and tried again. Dana watched for a moment. “You ask first.” Holly ignored her and made another determined attempt. “Holly. You can’t just get on people’s beds.” Holly turned her head, cheek flattened against the quilt. “Up.” “Ask Aunt Jennifer.”
Holly looked toward Jennifer. “Up, pwease.” Jennifer held out both hands. “That sounds like asking.” She lifted Holly easily and set her near the middle of the bed. Holly immediately bounced once on her bottom, delighted with the new surface. Dana’s mouth opened. Jennifer glanced at her. “A little bounce is fine.” Dana closed her mouth again, revised the rule, and asked, “Can I sit too?” “Of course.” Dana climbed much more carefully, using both hands to push herself up. She sat near the edge with her feet dangling and looked around again from this new height. Holly bounced a second time, then tipped sideways and rolled onto her back, one arm flung over her eyes. “Bed,” she announced.
“Yes,” Dana said. “We already knew that.” Holly kicked both heels against the quilt. Dana reached over and pressed one shin gently down. “Don’t kick Aunt Jennifer’s bed.” Holly stopped, not because the correction carried authority but because she had noticed a book on the bedside table and was now reaching for that instead.
Jennifer intercepted the book before Holly could drag it down by the dust jacket. “This one’s heavy.” She set it farther back, then chose a thinner volume from the stack and handed it to Holly. “You can look at this one.” Holly sat up and opened it from the back. Dana was already looking at the bedside pile. “You’re reading all those?” “Not all at the same time.” Jennifer sat on the bed beside Dana, leaving Holly enough room to turn pages. “This one I’m almost finished with. That one I’ve only started. That one I keep going back to because I like it.” Dana pointed to the facedown book on the chair. “And that one you’re hurting.” Jennifer looked over. “Apparently so.” Dana slid off the bed, crossed to the chair and very carefully closed the book after checking that its page was marked by a scrap of paper.
She set it flat on the seat. “Books don’t like being on their faces.” “I’ll try to remember.” Dana looked suspiciously at her, deciding whether Jennifer genuinely required the lesson or was being agreeable. “Mama says the spine gets bad.” “Your mama is right.” That settled it. Dana returned to the bed. Holly had reached an illustration in her book and was rubbing the picture with one fingertip. “Dog,” she said. “Horse,” Dana corrected. Holly looked at the page again. “Dog-horse.” “That’s not a thing.” Holly smiled to herself and repeated, “Dog-horse.” Jennifer bent over the page and said, “I’ve met horses who thought they were dogs.” Dana considered the possibility, then shook her head. “That’s silly.” She did not sound offended by the silliness.
The guitar case had been waiting in the corner of Dana’s vision since she came into the room. She finally pointed. “Is your guitar in there?” Jennifer followed her finger. “One of them.” “The old one?” “The old one.” Dana slid from the bed again. This time Holly stayed where she was, absorbed in turning three pages at once. Dana walked to the case and stopped just short of it. Its brown surface was dull, with scratches that crossed one another near the bottom and a place where the leather had worn pale. She looked over her shoulder. “Can I touch the case?” “Yes.” Dana put her palm on it. The case was cooler than she expected. “Can I see the guitar too?” Jennifer got up. “You can.”
She laid the case flat on the rug and worked the latches one by one. Dana knelt beside her without crowding. Holly noticed the clicking metal and came down from the bed much less gracefully, turning onto her stomach and lowering one leg until Jennifer caught her under the arms and put her on the floor. “Guitar,” Dana told her. Holly hugged the book to her chest and came closer. Jennifer lifted the lid. The guitar inside was dark with age and handling, the wood lighter in places where hands had worn it and marked near the strings by years of playing. Dana did not reach. She stared.
“You had this when you were little?” “Not as little as you. I was fourteen when I bought it.” Dana turned her head so fast that her hair brushed her cheek. “Fourteen?” “Fourteen.” “You had to wait that long?” Jennifer nodded. Dana’s face became deeply sympathetic. “That is a lot of waiting.”
Jennifer’s smile widened. “It felt like it.” She slid one hand beneath the neck and another beneath the body, lifting the guitar from the case. “I wanted one for years before I could afford it.” Dana knew about money in the way young children did: adults had it, did not always have enough of it, and became interested in prices at inconvenient moments. “Did Mama April say no?” “No. There just wasn’t money for one.” Dana accepted that immediately. Lack of money was different from a rule. Jennifer sat again on the edge of the bed with the guitar across her lap. Dana moved close, hands behind her back. “Can I touch it?” “Right here.” Jennifer guided her toward the broad curve of the body. Dana laid two fingers against the wood, then her whole palm.
The guitar had a smoothness the case did not. “It feels old.” “It is old.” “Older than Mama?” Jennifer’s eyes flickered with amusement. “Yes.” Dana looked impressed. Holly, unwilling to remain outside a ceremony involving touching, came to Jennifer’s other knee and held up one finger. “Me.” Jennifer caught her little hand before it reached the strings. “One finger. Gentle.” She guided Holly’s fingertip to a single string and let her pluck. The low, imperfect note filled the room. Holly’s eyes widened. “Again.” “One more.” Another string sounded, brighter this time. Holly laughed and reached with her whole hand. Jennifer covered the strings with her palm before they could be grabbed. “That was the one more.” Holly’s mouth turned down. “More.”
“Later.”
Holly looked toward Dana as though appealing to a higher court. Dana shook her head. “She said later.” Holly’s disappointment lasted only until Jennifer tapped twice on the wooden body of the guitar. Holly immediately tapped her own knees in reply.
Dana climbed back onto the bed and sat close enough that the guitar’s neck crossed in front of her. “Did you play it in here?” “A lot.” “When everybody was sleeping?” “Sometimes when everybody was sleeping.” “Did they tell you stop?” Jennifer thought about it. “Sometimes Mama April told me it was late. Papa Brandon usually slept through more of it than he admitted.” Dana smiled. “Mama tells me I gotta sleep when I’m not sleepy.” “That happens to children everywhere.” “But I’m awake.” “That has never stopped a bedtime.” Dana looked down at the strings. “Did you make songs here?” Jennifer nodded.
“Some of the first ones.” Dana’s gaze moved slowly around the room as if invisible pieces of those songs might still be lodged in the corners. “Right on this bed?” “Sometimes. Sometimes in that chair. Sometimes on the floor. I moved around.” Dana pointed to the window. “Did you sing out there?” “Out the window?” Jennifer asked. Dana nodded, very serious. “No. Not usually.” “Why?” “I didn’t want to wake the neighbors.” Dana accepted that as responsible conduct. Holly, still tapping her knees, began to hum one note over and over, not matching anything the guitar had played. Jennifer answered with two quiet notes plucked under her fingers. Holly stopped, listened, then hummed again. Jennifer replied. They repeated the exchange until Holly grinned and buried her face against Jennifer’s skirt.
The window interested Dana once the guitar was put safely back in its case. She climbed down and went to it, standing on tiptoe to see outside. Jennifer moved the curtain aside for her. The view was not grand. A patch of yard, the back fence, branches moving in the autumn air, neighboring roofs beyond them. Dana pressed one fingertip to the glass. “Was this window here when you were little?” “That window was.” “Same glass?” “Some of it, maybe. A pane or two got replaced.” Dana looked at the wooden frame. There were layers of paint around the latch and one shallow nick in the sill. “What’s that?” Jennifer bent beside her.
“That mark?” Dana nodded. Jennifer rubbed it with her thumb. “That was there before I was big enough to reach it.” Dana stared. “Before you?” “Before me.” She crouched to get closer and touched the nick as though it might have a pulse. Holly came over because Dana had crouched. “Hole,” she said. “Not a hole. A mark.” Dana pointed. “It was here when Aunt Jennifer was little.” Holly bent so close her nose nearly touched the sill. “Jen little?” “Yes,” Jennifer said behind them. Holly stood and looked all the way up at her. The idea visibly failed to fit. “No.” Jennifer laughed. “I promise.”
Holly looked to Dana. Dana had no patience for disbelief in obvious facts. “Everybody was little.” Holly considered Dana, whom she already regarded as large and authoritative, then Jennifer, who was much larger. “Mama little?” “Mama was little too.” Holly’s eyes widened, and then she began laughing for no reason anyone else could entirely follow. “Mama little,” she repeated, delighted by the absurdity.
After another moment at the window, Dana asked, “Do you still have anything from when you were little?” Jennifer looked toward the highest shelf beside the wardrobe. “A few things.” That drew Dana away at once. Holly was sitting on the rug with Thumper restored to her lap, patting one of his worn ears between her fingers, while Jennifer reached up and brought down a small cloth bundle tied with faded ribbon. She placed it on the bed and untied the ribbon carefully. Dana climbed up beside it. Inside lay a few things whose importance was not obvious at first glance: a small tin with scratched flowers painted on the lid, two old buttons threaded together on string, a folded paper packet, a wooden whistle and a flannel rabbit flattened by age.
The rabbit’s fabric had once been blue or perhaps grey; time had made the color difficult to name. One ear leaned sideways. Its stitched mouth had been repaired with darker thread. Dana reached toward it, stopped and looked at Jennifer. “Can I?” “You can hold her.” Dana lifted the rabbit with both hands. It weighed almost nothing. “Was this yours?” “I made her when I was a girl.” “You made a bunny?” “I did.” Dana turned it over, examining the seams. “Why?” “I wanted one.” That answer delighted Dana more than any elaborate story could have. If you wanted a rabbit and could make one, making one was clearly sensible. “What’s her name?” Jennifer hesitated. “I called her Listener.” Dana looked at the rabbit’s long faded ears and nodded with immediate approval. “That’s a good name.”
Holly heard the word bunny and was beside them before Dana could say anything else. “Bunny.” She still held Thumper under one arm, but the existence of another rabbit demanded investigation. Dana pulled Listener closer to her chest. “Wait. It’s old.” Holly reached. “Bunny.” “I know, but it’s Aunt Jennifer’s. You gotta be gentle.” Holly’s lower lip pushed forward. Jennifer sat between them, not as a barrier but close enough to help. “Would you like to hold her for a minute?” Holly nodded vigorously. Dana looked dubious. “She might pull the ear.” “Then we’ll help her not pull the ear.”
Jennifer held out her hands for Listener, and Dana surrendered the rabbit reluctantly. Jennifer placed it across Holly’s lap beside Thumper. For a moment Holly became very still. She looked from her own soft grey rabbit, worn from less than two years of constant handling, to Jennifer’s flannel one worn by decades. She touched Listener’s bent ear with one fingertip. “Bunny tired,” she said. Dana’s protective expression softened. “She’s old.” Holly leaned down and pressed her cheek against Listener’s head. Then, unexpectedly, she placed Thumper beside the old rabbit so their fabric bodies touched. “Friends.” Jennifer’s face went very quiet. Dana noticed. She looked at the rabbits, then at Jennifer. “They can be friends while we’re here,” she decided.
Holly kept both rabbits in her lap for perhaps thirty seconds before noticing the tin in the bundle. She reached for it and Dana moved it away. “No, that’s not yours.” Holly clutched Listener instinctively when denied something else. Dana’s eyes went wide. “Don’t squeeze her.” Holly squeezed harder because now everyone cared. Jennifer touched Holly’s wrist gently. “Listener stays here with me.” Holly looked down at the rabbit, then away. “Mine.” “Thumper is yours,” Jennifer said. “Listener is mine.” Holly’s grip loosened but did not release. “Mine bunny.” Dana leaned close, voice firm but not loud. “You got your bunny. Aunt Jennifer’s bunny lives here. You don’t take people’s bunnies.” It was a rule Dana had enforced before and clearly considered among the more fundamental laws of civilization.
Holly frowned at her. Dana pointed to Thumper. “That’s Holly-baby’s. Nobody takes Thumper. So we don’t take Listener.” Holly looked from one rabbit to the other. The logic found a place. She picked up Thumper, hugged him tight, then extended Listener toward Jennifer with obvious reluctance. “Stay.” “That’s right,” Jennifer said, accepting the rabbit. “She stays.” Holly patted Listener once after Jennifer set her down. “Bye bunny.” “We’re not leaving yet,” Dana told her. “She can still see you.” Holly ignored this correction and climbed back onto the bed.
Once the bundle had been retied and returned to the shelf, Dana noticed another photograph near the mirror. It showed Jennifer much younger with a guitar, seated on the back steps in sunlight. Dana took it only after Jennifer offered it to her. “Is that this guitar?” “That very one.” “And this house?” “Those are the back steps.” Dana looked between the photograph and the closed guitar case. “So you had the guitar here and now it’s still here.” “Yes.” Dana’s face turned thoughtful. “You keep things a long time.” Jennifer laughed softly. “Some things.” Dana looked around at Listener on the shelf, the thimble in its tin, the photographs, the old guitar case. “I keep things too.” “I know.” “I got a rock that looks like a potato.” “That sounds worth keeping.” Dana’s eyes brightened. “It does. Mama said it was just a rock, but she let me keep it.” Holly, listening to the word potato, said “Tato,” then repeated it until Dana acknowledged her.
“Yes, potato. But not to eat. My rock.” Holly nodded as though she had been warned against a real danger. Jennifer sat back against the headboard, leaving Dana room beside her. “What else do you keep?” Dana listed the potato rock, a yellow ribbon, three buttons, the feather Mama said might have mites and therefore had to live in a jar, and a paper star Veronika had folded for her. Jennifer listened without interrupting. When Dana finished, she looked around the room again with new satisfaction. She understood the abundance now. It was not clutter. It was keeping.
Dana rested both hands on the edge of the mattress. “What’s your favorite thing in here?” she asked. Jennifer did not answer at once. Dana waited, which she was capable of doing when she believed a person was actually thinking. Jennifer looked at the guitar case, the photographs, the shelves, Listener on the high shelf and the desk where papers had accumulated into their own geography. Finally she looked toward the window. “Maybe not a thing.” Dana followed her gaze. “The window?” “Maybe the room.” Dana frowned. “The room is the room.” “Exactly.” Dana turned this over. Jennifer touched the quilt beside her. “I can take the guitar somewhere else. I can take the books. I can carry photographs with me. But this is the room Mama April came into every morning when I was little.
Papa Brandon used to stand in that doorway and tell me supper was ready. I’ve looked out that window for as long as I can remember. I like opening my eyes and knowing where I am.” Dana listened without moving. Jennifer did not tell her that houses became repositories for grief or that continuity could become a form of shelter. She only added, “It feels like mine.” Dana’s face changed with recognition. “That’s why bedrooms are special.” “That might be why.” Dana looked pleased, not because she had been complimented but because a theory had held.
“My room feels like mine,” she said. “Even when Holly comes in.” Holly lifted her head at her name. Dana continued, “She comes in a lot.” “Holly room,” Holly objected. “No, your room is your room. Mine is mine.” Holly shook her head. “Dana room.” “You can come in my room. It’s still my room.” Holly’s brow furrowed. Jennifer let the disagreement breathe. Dana tried again. “Like Thumper is yours, but I can hold him if you say yes.” That landed. Holly immediately tightened her arm around Thumper. “Mine.” “Right. And my room is mine.” Holly considered, then pointed vaguely toward the hallway. “Jen room.” “Yes.”
Dana turned to Jennifer, satisfied with the lesson. “She gets it.” Holly may or may not have gotten it, but she repeated “Jen room” and patted the quilt, which was close enough.
She sat up again when she remembered an obligation. “When you come to our house, you can see my room.” Jennifer looked at her. “Can I?” “Yes.” Dana raised one finger. “But you have to ask.” “Of course.” “Even though I told you now.” “I’ll ask when I’m there.” Dana nodded. “Because maybe I change my mind.” “That’s allowed.” Dana looked pleased by the firmness of the answer. “And you can touch my potato rock.” “I’m honored.” “But not the feather jar unless Mama says. Because mites.”
“Understood.” Holly lifted her head again. “My room.” Dana sighed. “Aunt Jennifer can see yours too.” Holly sat up completely. “My room too.” “Yes.” “Bunny.” “Thumper will be there.” Holly held the rabbit up by both hands as if presenting proof. Jennifer touched one worn ear. “Then I’ll definitely have to visit.” Holly smiled and hugged Thumper against her chest.
Dana glanced toward Listener’s shelf. “Can Thumper see Listener again before we go?” Holly turned at once toward the shelf, suddenly alert. Jennifer reached up and brought the old flannel rabbit down. This time she gave Listener directly to Holly, whose handling had become noticeably gentler. Holly sat with one rabbit in each arm. She pressed their noses together and whispered something too soft to make out. Dana leaned closer. “What’d you say?” Holly turned away, protecting the rabbits from interrogation. “Talkin’.” “What are they talking about?” Holly considered the question, then whispered into Thumper’s ear and answered, “Bed.” Dana accepted this. “They both live on beds.” “No,” Holly said, decisive now. She pointed to Listener. “Jen bed.” Then to Thumper. “Me bed.”
Dana smiled. “Yeah. That’s right.” Jennifer watched without speaking. Holly arranged the rabbits side by side on the quilt, made them lie down, covered their bodies with the edge of a folded cardigan and patted them twice. “Night-night.”
Holly began fussing suddenly, not from sadness but from the particular tiredness that arrived in her body all at once. She rubbed one eye with the back of her fist, pushed Listener away and reached for Thumper. Dana noticed before Jennifer did. “She’s sleepy.” Holly immediately objected. “No sleepy.” Dana climbed onto the bed again. “You’re doing your sleepy face.” “No.” “You are.” Holly shoved Thumper’s ear into her mouth, a habit that made Dana’s case stronger. Jennifer sat near her and smoothed the hair back from Holly’s forehead. “You don’t have to sleep.” Holly relaxed slightly at the removal of threat.
Dana picked Listener up from where she had been pushed and held the old rabbit out to Jennifer. “She didn’t mean to throw her.” “I know.” Jennifer took Listener and set her safely beside the pillow for now. Holly crawled toward Dana and folded herself against her sister’s lap, still insisting, “No seep.” Dana stroked her curls with the solemn competence she had practiced since Holly was a baby. “Okay. Don’t sleep.” Holly closed her eyes.
Dana looked down at the warm weight against her and then across at Jennifer. Her voice lowered. “She always says she’s not.” Jennifer nodded. “That sounds familiar.” “Did you do that?” “I’m sure I did.” Dana smiled faintly. Holly’s breathing had already begun to lengthen, though one hand remained clenched around Thumper. Dana did not move her. Instead she leaned back against the headboard and let Holly settle partly across her legs. Jennifer tucked the edge of the quilt over Holly’s feet. Dana watched closely, then whispered, “She can sleep here?” “If she wants.” “It’s your bed.” “I know.” “And you say yes.” “I say yes.” Dana nodded. That mattered enough to verify even now.
She looked up at Jennifer. “I’m glad you said yes.” Jennifer’s eyes softened. “I’m glad you asked.” Dana thought about this distinction. “If I didn’t ask, I wouldn’t come in.” “No?” “No. That’s rude.” “Then I’m glad you weren’t rude.” Dana almost laughed, but caught herself because Holly was sleeping. Her smile deepened instead. “And next time you come, you ask me.” “I will.” “And I’ll say yes.” Jennifer raised an eyebrow. “You already know?” Dana considered whether that violated her earlier insistence that she might change her mind. “Probably.” Jennifer nodded gravely.
“Probably is fair.” Dana leaned her head against Jennifer’s shoulder. “You can see the potato rock.” “That alone makes the trip worthwhile.” Dana gave her a suspicious sideways glance, unsure whether the sentence was teasing. Jennifer’s face remained entirely serious. Dana decided to trust it.
Holly stirred, opened her eyes only halfway and murmured, “Mama?” Dana bent over her immediately. “Mama’s downstairs.” Holly blinked, remembered enough of the room to stop searching, and pushed herself upright with sleepy difficulty. “Mama.” “We can go see her.” Dana looked to Jennifer, then around the room once more. She did not want the visit to end abruptly simply because Holly had woken. “Can we stay one more minute?” “As many as you need.” Holly crawled into Dana’s lap, heavy with sleep. Dana wrapped both arms around her and let Holly’s head settle beneath her chin. “One minute,” she repeated to Holly. Holly did not object. Thumper was trapped between them, one ear sticking out over Dana’s wrist.
Dana used her minute without speaking. She looked carefully enough that Jennifer could see her storing positions: guitar case by the wall, desk under the shelves, photographs at the mirror, bed under the slope, window beside it. Holly’s breathing warmed the front of her shirt. At last Dana slid toward the edge of the bed and stood, still holding Holly until Jennifer reached for the toddler. Holly transferred without protest, curling against Jennifer with the loose trust of a child not fully awake.
Dana picked up Thumper from the quilt and tucked him into Holly’s arm. Then she noticed Listener still beside the pillow. She touched the old rabbit’s foot once. “Bye, Listener.” Holly opened one eye and echoed, “Bye bunny.” Dana looked at Jennifer. “She stays here.” “She does.” Dana nodded.
At the doorway she stopped exactly as she had when entering, though for a different reason. She turned back. From the hall, the room looked smaller again. Jennifer stood inside it with Holly against her shoulder, Holly’s face nearly hidden in her neck, Thumper dangling safely from one sleepy fist. Dana put her hand on the doorframe. “Aunt Jennifer?” “Mm-hm?” “You can shut it after us.”
Jennifer waited. Dana seemed to search for one final thing, then said, “Because it’s yours.” Jennifer’s smile came slowly. “It is.” Dana stepped into the hallway. Jennifer followed with Holly and drew the door mostly closed behind them, not all the way, leaving a narrow line of the room visible through the gap. Dana looked at that line and did not reach to open it again. She had seen what she had asked to see, and the narrow strip of quilt and floor beyond the door felt no less Jennifer’s for having been shared. Dana left it where it was, carrying the shape of the room with her instead: the old guitar by the wall, the rabbits on the bed, the photographs by the mirror, and the quiet pleasure of having asked and been told yes.