I nodded. We watched the surfers, watched the waves. The sky was clear and blue now, no traces of the morning’s fog.
“Do you like it?” Julia asked. But I didn’t know what she meant. All I saw was the deep blue-green water, the white foam against dark rock. The wildflower-studded cliffs, and the tall grasses in the wind. “Because it’s magnificent,” she said. “But I don’t like it. It scares me.”
“I guess I didn’t know I was allowed to not like it.” I felt foolish saying that, but it was true.
“I love the sound,” Julia said. “The sight from a safe distance. A far distance. I like a view of the ocean, but not the actual thing of it. But Terry and many of the others—Billy and Liz, too—they love being up close. I think it helps drown out certain things for them.”
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say. I looked at all of it and asked myself how I felt, and I didn’t have an answer.
poppies
JULIA AND I ENTERED THE HOUSE through the front door, the one I’d turned away from the night before. It opened into a foyer that led to the living room, where the high schoolers were helping the little ones, gathered around the coffee table with scissors and glue and sheets of colorful paper.
“Time to clean up!” said Emma, the girl who’d smiled at me that morning. I watched as each of the tiny children stacked the paper and put the caps back on the glue. Emma patted little Blanca on the head before she led the other two teenagers upstairs.
“Thank you!” Julia called after them. Then she turned to the children and marveled over their collages and cleanup. She promised them extra bubbles for their baths and they happily followed her out. “The others should be in the kitchen,” she called back. I could hear voices from around the corner—Terry and Lee and Billy—deep in conversation. I took the steps down through the doorway.
Four loaves of sourdough sat cooling on the counter. Billy was shaking a jar of cream, turning it to butter.
“Oh, there you are,” he said when he saw me. “Julia stole you away.”
Lee glanced up from his comic. “Where did she take you?”
“To the ocean.”
The sloshing sound ended. “Finally!” Billy said. He unscrewed the lid, set down the jar, and rubbed his bicep. I noticed a gold bracelet on his wrist, a simple chain. Terry uncovered a giant pot and the scent of tomato soup filled the kitchen. Lee licked his lips and said, “Yum-yum!”
Terry ladled the soup into bowls on the counter and placed the lid back on the pot. “Billy, how is that butter coming along?”
“Stirring in the salt,” Billy said. “Patience, old man.”
A little later, Liz appeared from the living room. She crossed to the sink and washed her hands before grabbing a bread knife. “How was your first day?” she asked without turning around.
“I enjoyed it,” I said.
“You don’t have to say that just because we’re all here,” Billy said.
“Agreed,” said Terry. “First days are often difficult.”
But I thought of it—the early morning and the breakfast and the pencil sharpening and the lessons, even the mistake of looking too long at Lee’s broken finger, even his moment of fear—and I was sure I was telling the truth.
“I really did,” I said.
Lee shut his comic. “Let’s play high-low.”
Liz finished slicing and I noticed that each piece of bread was perfect, as though she’d sliced hundreds of loaves. She set down the knife and said, “Sure, Lee. Let’s. Want to go first?”
“My high was meeting Mila. It’s been hard to not have a teacher for two whole months.”
Warmth rushed to my chest. Here was this little boy, who wanted me.
“My high was meeting Mila,” Liz said. She glanced at me and smiled. I felt myself blush. “Terry?”
“Hmmmm . . .” He brushed his hands on the front of his apron. “Well, I met Mila yesterday so I have to break this lovely pattern. But my high was watching Mila teach school. She’s a natural. With teaching, you have it or you don’t. You can still get by by learning the nuts and bolts of it, but that teacher instinct—it can’t be taught.”
It was almost too much to take, all this praise.
“Are you going to keep going?” Billy asked. “I thought we were playing high-low but this sounds like a lecture.”
Terry threw up his hands. “Go ahead.”
Billy set a bowl of fresh butter next to the bread. “Well, obviously my high was meeting Mila. Welcome to the farm. We’re super happy to have you.”
“Thank you,” I said. “My high is right now.”
“It’s almost time to call the rest in,” Terry said. “Lightning-bolt lows! Mine’s the supply closet in the schoolhouse. Utter chaos.”
“A blister on my toe,” Liz said.
“Missed my parents like hell this morning,” Billy said.
Lee leaned forward. “That thing happened to me again. I got scared in my throat and stomach.”
I wondered why he would say it now, so clearly, when he hadn’t said it then. I wanted to be someone he trusted.
“That was mine, too,” I said. “Seeing you feel that way.”
He gave me a smile. When I was his age, I had my grandparents. I had my mother. It wasn’t until later that all of it changed. Lee, I thought, as the freshly bathed children filed in, as Emma and Hunter and Jackson took the far end of the table, as he chewed small bites of bread, swallowed his careful spoonfuls of soup. I’ll do whatever I need to earn your trust.
And once the four loaves were eaten along with all the butter, once everyone’s bowls were empty, and the preschoolers had practiced the songs they’d been learning, and we’d moved into the living room for a round of charades, Julia stood and said, “It’s warm tonight. Anyone up for a moon romp?”
“Yes!” the children all yelled, and out they went with their lanterns into the night while the high schoolers settled on the back porch, two of them with guitars, and Billy and Liz and I cleaned up in the kitchen.
* * *
___
“Lee’s gone through a lot,” Billy said to me, later. “He gets panic attacks. He knows how to work through them. Just give him some time and he’ll be okay.”
We were walking back to our cabins, the three of us, each of us holding a lantern.
“Do you know what happened to Lee’s parents?” I asked.