“What?”
“Samuel wants to know if you know he’s sorry.”
Aaron closed his eyes.
“Tell him I know.”
Cole returned.
Samuel cried.
Nobody pretended not to see.
The club left.
That afternoon Aaron was discharged.
He had no local home.
He had driven from Kentucky, where he and Maya had lived for six years.
Cole offered the clubhouse guest room.
Aaron said no immediately.
Cole expected it.
Then Cole offered a hotel.
“No.”
“My house?”
Aaron stared.
Cole regretted asking.
Then Maya signed from beside the wheelchair:
Does Grandpa have Wi-Fi?
Aaron looked at her.
Cole answered:
Very good Wi-Fi.
Maya nodded decisively.
His house.
Aaron sighed.
“This is how democracy dies.”
Cole laughed.
They went to his house.
The last time Aaron had seen it, he was nineteen.
Cole still lived in the same cedar-sided home outside Knoxville.
The porch had been rebuilt.
Roof changed.
Kitchen remodeled.
But the hallway photographs remained.
Aaron stopped inside the entrance.
A photograph of Hannah hung exactly where it had fifteen years earlier.
Another showed Cole and Aaron fishing when Aaron was twelve.
Another, graduation.
Aaron stared.
“You kept these?”
Cole looked confused.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
Aaron said nothing.
Maya walked through the house slowly.
She stopped before Hannah’s portrait.
Her grandmother was thirty-five in the photograph.
Long dark hair.
Bright eyes.
Hands resting in her lap.
Maya touched the frame.
Then signed:
She looks like Mom’s videos.
Cole stood beside her.
He signed:
She would have loved you.
Maya looked up.
How do you know?
Cole smiled.
She loved everybody until they gave her a reason not to.
Aaron laughed from behind them.
“That is absolutely not true.”
Cole turned.
Aaron continued.
“Mom hated at least six people on sight.”
Cole smiled.
“She had instincts.”
That evening they ate soup because Aaron’s ribs made heavy food uncomfortable.
Maya sat between them at the kitchen table.
Cole found himself watching her constantly.
Not because she was strange.
Because she was familiar.
She cut carrots the way Aaron had as a child.
Pushed celery to one side.
Drank water before eating.
When she wanted someone’s attention, she tapped the table twice.
Hannah’s habit.
After dinner, Maya wandered toward the living room.
Cole and Aaron remained at the table.
Aaron said:
“Don’t turn her into Mom.”
Cole looked at him.
“What?”
“I see you looking.”
Cole lowered his eyes.
Aaron continued.
“She has Hannah’s mannerisms.”
“I know.”
“But she’s Maya.”
“I know.”