If You Come Softly: Chapters 7–26

"Yeah—it just seems like more than a coincidence when it happens to me. Like what made them think I needed remedial anything. Nobody tested me. Nobody asked me. They just threw me in it then looked surprised when I knew it all. I mean, it makes you wonder—is it my hair?"

When he had tried the uniform on at the end of the summer, his father had said he looked smart in it. But smart and good were two real different things and Jeremiah knew he didn't look his best on school days.

Across the street two little girls sat on a stoop playing jacks.

That was years ago, but whenever he thought about it, he could feel the imprint of her hand.

He looked tired and thin in his blue shirt and khakis, his stethoscope dangling from his pocket.

"Sunday afternoon," my father said, smiling, "this intern came in carrying the Times and I thought—I'm not going to read it until I can read it with my Ellie."

He shook his head solemnly.

Every Sunday, as she fussed about the kitchen preparing dinner, she'd punctuate our quiet time with complaints.

Two old women, walking arm in arm, eyed us. Jeremiah frowned, glaring at them.

I felt hot suddenly, clammy. Clammy and white. White and clammy.

"My dad pays. He doesn't say much as long as he knows I'm going every day. Just asks how it's going and blasé blasé. They separated—my parents did. Whatever."

The air around us seemed thick suddenly, hot and stifling.

He unzipped his knapsack and started rummaging through it. After a moment, he came up with a Snickers bar.

His father looked good this evening, relaxed and smiling, his long legs propped up on an ottoman.

His dad was tall and brown with jet-black hair that had begun to recede and a wide opened smile.

And in the distance, he heard the vague sound of a basketball, someone bouncing it slowly, some young kid somewhere, learning how to handle the ball, how to keep it near him.

There isn't Marion's warning about time making changes we can't ever anticipate. Only Miah's hand in mine and a voice much louder than Marion's—my own—saying, Take this moment and run, Ellie.

Now Frank was at Moorehouse, playing football and majoring in sociology.

I crossed one ankle over the other and stared down at my loafers.

"You could have told me sooner, you know. I feel like you've been lying—"
"But I haven't been, Ellie. I just didn't want to talk about them."
"Lies by omission."

And my parents in it were aging and set in their ways, not elegant and creative like Miah's.

Upstairs, I could hear music coming from Nelia's office. It was soft music, air mostly, with fragile notes on the edges of it.

And at the podium, Miah but older, much older, lighter, and with someone else's eyes.

So sure of himself, so calm and poised but the hands—shaking hands, hands with Miah's fingers.

There is a plaque outside the gym at Percy.