Chapter 6
Emily walked me out to the elevator when the session ended. In the hallway, outside the cheerful noise of the playroom, she looked like what she actually was: a person doing a very hard job with the full weight of what that job required resting on her at all times.
"That was not on the donation list," she said.
"No," I said.
"You didn't have to do that."
I thought about Jalen saying what no adult had managed to say, about the mirror covered in construction paper, about the way Ava had touched the edge of her hat at the end.
"I know," I said.
Emily was quiet for a moment. Then she said, "She asked us yesterday if she could see the mirror again. We uncovered it this morning before you got here. She looked at herself for about thirty seconds and asked us to cover it back up."
I nodded.
May you like
"Come back next month," Emily said. "If you want."
I came back the following month. And the month after that. The Iron Hollow Riders made it a standing run, first Tuesday of every month, and we added a barber chair to the donation list because Luis started showing up every time we did and the folding chair from the playroom had not been designed with this in mind.
