He did not open it. He thought about opening it many times. He took it home and put it in the box Renee had labeled THEO & LULU — KEEP, between two layers of newspaper, next to his grandmother's lighthouse plate. Then he closed the box and put it on the top shelf of his closet, and it stayed there.
Dr. Fitch said that was all right. She said some letters are for later, and some are for never, and you don't always know which when you're holding them.
XII
In April, the sycamore outside the kitchen window put out leaves the size of baby hands, and Gloria came for Sunday dinner the way she had every Sunday since October, carrying a casserole dish wrapped in a towel and complaining about the stairs.
Andre made the rest: baked chicken, green beans with a little bacon, rice. He was not a good cook. He was getting less bad. Theo set the table — four mismatched plates on the round wood top that looked like the inside of a cookie — and put the forks on the left without being asked, and then, after a second, put one fork on the wrong side on purpose and grinned at his father, and Andre grinned back.
Lulu had gained four pounds. Dr. Herrera's line had turned and was climbing again, slowly, like someone coming back up a hill. Her twists were done in yellow hair ties this week; Gloria had done them, and Lulu had chosen the color herself.
The basket sat in the middle of the table. Full. It was always full now.
They said grace. Gloria said it, the long version, with a part about the hands that prepared the food that made Andre roll his eyes and Theo snort into his napkin. Then they passed things. The kitchen was warm and loud with the radio and the clink of serving spoons.
Lulu reached for a roll.
Her hand went out across the table, toward the basket, and then — halfway — it stopped. It just stopped in the air, small fingers spread, and her eyes went to her father's face.
Checking.
It had been six months. She still checked. Andre thought she might check for a long time yet; maybe, in some small way, for the rest of her life. Dr. Fitch had told him that too. The body remembers. You don't erase it. You just write over it, again and again, until the new thing is louder than the old.
He picked up the basket and held it out to her.
"Go on, baby," he said. "You don't have to ask."
She took one. Then she looked at him again, a little sly, and took another, and put it in the front pocket of her overalls, and patted it.