Chapter 37
— The Storybook
The morning after the hearing, the house felt different in a way I could not name at first. It was not louder or quieter. It was simply ours again. The rain had stopped during the night, and light came through the kitchen windows in long, clean bands across the floor. Poppy sat at the table with her cereal, her spoon moving in slow circles, and Dolores stood at the counter with her hands folded, watching her the way a person watches a small boat that has finally reached calm water. I stood in the doorway for a moment, not wanting to break the quiet, because after weeks of lawyers and papers and careful voices, quiet felt like something we had earned.
Elspeth arrived just after nine. I heard her car in the drive, and then the soft sound of the front door opening, because Dolores had already let her in. She carried a cloth bag over one shoulder, the kind of bag that looks as if it has held groceries and library books and a hundred small errands, and she held it close to her chest with both hands, as if what was inside mattered more than anything else she owned. She smiled at me, and then she looked at Poppy, and her face changed in the way a face changes when it is holding back tears and joy at the same time.
"I brought something," she said. "It belonged to Meredith, and then it belonged to me for safekeeping, and now it belongs to Poppy. I should have brought it sooner, but I wanted the right day, and today feels like the right day."
Poppy slid down from her chair and went to her, shy and curious all at once. Elspeth knelt down so that they were eye to eye, and she opened the bag slowly. Inside, wrapped in a clean white cloth, was a book. It was not a printed book from a shop. It was handmade, stitched along the spine with strong thread, its cover made from thick paper the color of warm cream. The title had been written by hand in dark ink, in letters that leaned a little to the left, the way Meredith's letters always leaned when she was writing quickly and happily. The Girl With the Brave Curls.
I knew that handwriting at once. I had seen it on shopping lists and birthday cards and notes left on the kitchen counter. For a moment I could not speak, because the sight of it brought Meredith back into the room so clearly that I half expected to hear her voice from the hallway. Elspeth placed the book in Poppy's hands with great care, and Poppy held it as if it were made of glass, her fingers barely touching the cover.
"Mama made this?" Poppy asked, her voice small and full of wonder.
"She did," Elspeth said. "She made it for you before you were born. She wrote the words and drew every picture herself. She kept it in her desk, and when she went into the hospital, she asked me to keep it safe until you were old enough to understand it. I have kept it in my house in Wilmington all this time, on the highest shelf, where nothing could spill on it and no one could take it by mistake."
Poppy opened the cover. On the first page, in the same leaning handwriting, Meredith had written a short note. For Poppy, my brave girl. May you always know that you are loved exactly as you are. I read it over her shoulder, and the words settled into my chest like a weight and a comfort at the same time. This was not a thing made for a courtroom or a lawyer or a stranger. It was made by a mother for her daughter, in a quiet room, with love and ink and paper.
Poppy turned the pages slowly, one by one, stopping to look at each picture for a long time. She did not ask me to read it yet. She seemed to understand that some things need to be held first and read second. When she reached the last page, she closed the book gently and pressed it against her chest, the way she used to press her favorite doll close when she was tired.
"Can we keep it here?" she asked. "Can it live in my room?"
"It lives with you now," Elspeth said. "That is what your mother wanted. It was always yours."