“All right,” I said.
I stepped around my wife and carried Ella outside.
Across the street, Margaret Ellis stood behind her curtains with one hand lifted to her mouth.
Margaret had been our neighbor for six years.
She was a retired elementary school librarian who remembered birthdays, returned trash cans after storms, and left garden tomatoes on our porch every July.
Ella trusted her because Margaret never spoke to children as though their words were less important.
That night, Margaret did not wave.
She watched us cross the driveway with the expression of somebody who had already seen the beginning of the story.
I buckled Ella into the back seat of our SUV, placing the stuffed rabbit beside her.
Caroline came outside behind us.
“You are making this bigger than it is,” she said.
I closed Ella’s door before answering.
“I hope I am.”
Then I got into the driver’s seat and left.
