Chapter 2 - One Hour
Saturday came the way most important days come—badly.
Grant had slept four hours. He had spent Friday on a call with a freight broker in Ohio, then another with his CFO, then a third with a lawyer about a lease dispute in Aurora. He had eaten a granola bar for dinner standing at the kitchen island.
At 7:40 a.m. he was in the living room moving furniture.
"Why are you moving the couch?" Amelia asked from the doorway. She was in her chair, hair still messy, still in pajamas.
"It's in the way."
"In the way of what?"
Grant stopped. He was holding one end of a heavy sectional, sweat already soaking through his t-shirt. "I don't know. The chair. The dancing."
Amelia looked at him with the flat, patient expression of a child who had learned that adults did strange things when they were nervous.
"He's not going to dance with me, Dad."
"He might."
"He won't."
"Then we'll have the couch moved for no reason."
Amelia rolled her eyes. But there was a small smile hiding at the corner of her mouth.
Grant put the couch back. He showered. He put on a button-down, then changed into a sweater, then changed back into the button-down. At 9:15, he realized he had been standing in his bedroom for six minutes staring at his own closet and had no memory of what he'd gone in there for.
At 9:45, the doorbell rang.
Amelia was already in the foyer. She had put on a dress—a green one, not the blue one from the gala—and brushed her hair herself. She was gripping the wheels of her chair so hard her knuckles were white.
Grant opened the door.
Rosa stood on the porch in jeans and a plain blouse. She looked smaller than she had at the gala, without the uniform, without the hairnet. Leo stood beside her in a clean t-shirt and sneakers that had been white a long time ago. His hair was wet and combed flat.
He was wearing shoes.
Grant noticed it immediately. The boy who had walked barefoot across a marble ballroom was now standing on his porch with laces tied in careful double knots.
"Hi," Grant said.
"Hi," Leo said.
Rosa held up a paper bag. "I brought cookies. Sofia made them. My daughter."
"That's—thank you. Come in."
They stepped inside. Leo looked around the foyer with wide, careful eyes. He didn't say anything about the size of the house. He didn't say anything at all. He just looked, and then he looked at Amelia.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," she said.
There was a long pause. Grant and Rosa stood on either side of them like two goalies watching a penalty kick.
"So," Leo said. "Do you want to dance?"
Amelia blinked. "Now?"
"Yeah."
"In the wheelchair?"
"Sure."
"But—" She glanced at her father. "I don't know how."
"Neither do I," Leo said. "That's why it's fun."
He walked over and stood behind her chair. He put his hands on the handles. "Where's the music?"
Grant fumbled for his phone. He opened a playlist. The first thing that came up was a song from 2009, a slow acoustic thing Claire used to play in the car.
He almost changed it.
He didn't.
The song started. Leo pushed the wheelchair forward, one slow revolution around the living room. Amelia sat stiff and straight for the first few seconds. Then her shoulders dropped. Then she laughed.
It wasn't a big laugh. It was a small one, surprised out of her.
Leo spun the chair in a slow circle.
"See?" he said. "You're dancing."
"This isn't dancing."
"It's not not dancing."
She laughed again.
Rosa stood in the doorway with the bag of cookies. She was watching her son with an expression Grant couldn't read—pride and fear and something like grief.
Grant stood next to her. Neither of them spoke.
The song ended. Leo stopped the chair. Amelia was breathing hard, her cheeks pink.
"That was one song," Leo said. "My mom says one song is always enough for the first time."
Amelia looked up at him. "For the first time of what?"
"I don't know yet," Leo said. "But something."
---
They sat in the kitchen afterward. Rosa made coffee—Grant didn't know how to work his own machine, which he realized was embarrassing when Rosa had to show him. She found the mugs. She found the sugar. She moved around his kitchen like she had been there a hundred times, and he supposed, in a way, she had. She had been in kitchens like it.
Leo and Amelia sat at the island. Leo was telling her about Sofia.
"—so she climbed the tree because Mateo Delgado said girls couldn't get to the top branch. And she got to the top branch. And then the branch broke."
"Did it hurt?"
"She broke her leg in three places. And her hip. The doctors said she might not walk right again."
"But she did."
"She did."
"How?"
Leo shrugged. "She wanted to."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one I have."
Amelia looked down at the counter. She traced a circle on the granite with her finger. "I don't want to walk."
Everyone in the room went still.
Grant set down his coffee cup. "Amelia—"
"I mean I do want to," she said quickly. "I want to. But I don't—" She stopped.
Leo waited.
"I don't think I'm allowed to," she said.
Nobody said anything. Rosa looked at Grant. Grant looked at his daughter. The kitchen clock ticked.
"Who says?" Leo asked.
Amelia didn't answer.
The hour ended at 10:47. Rosa gathered Leo, and Leo said goodbye to Amelia, and Amelia said goodbye to Leo, and then they were gone.
Grant stood in the doorway long after the car pulled away.
He went back into the living room. The couch was slightly crooked from being moved and moved back. He straightened it.
Then he sat down on it and put his head in his hands.
I don't think I'm allowed to.
May you like
He knew what she meant. He had known for fourteen months and had never once said it out loud.
---
