Chapter 1

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The Saturday morning Amaya broke the bird, the sky over Maple Street was the color of a robin's egg, and the air smelled like cut grass and somebody's pancakes. Amaya was six years old, with dark curls that never quite agreed to stay in her hair clips, and she was riding on the back of Diego's bicycle because her own bicycle had a flat tire that nobody had gotten around to fixing yet.

"Hold on tight," Diego said. Diego was eight. He liked to remind people of his age, especially Jalil, who was seven and three-quarters and very particular about the three-quarters.

"I am holding," Amaya said into Diego's back.

"Tighter."

"I am TIGHTER."

They were going to Mrs. Gable's house. All six of them were going — Jalil and Mei and Amaya and Diego and Tommy and Noor — because Mrs. Gable had said she needed help. She had said it on Thursday, standing at the gate with her hands folded, and her voice had been smaller than usual.

"I'm going to clean out the garage," she had said. "Mr. Gable's things."

The kids had all nodded very seriously. They knew Mr. Gable had died a long time ago, before any of them were born. They knew there was a picture of him on Mrs. Gable's piano, a man with kind eyes and a striped tie. They knew Mrs. Gable talked to the picture sometimes, because Mei had seen it once through the window and had told the others, whispering, as if she were telling a secret about somebody very dear.

"We'll help," Jalil had said. "All of us."

"Yes," Mrs. Gable had said. And she had smiled, but it was a thin smile, like paper.

Now it was Saturday, and they were coming to help. Amaya slid off Diego's bike and stood with her sneakers on the hot sidewalk. She looked up at Mrs. Gable's house, with its white porch and its window boxes full of pink flowers, and she felt something small and excited flutter in her chest. She loved Mrs. Gable's house. There were soft blankets and a cat named Pudding and little glass things on shelves that caught the sun.

"Come in, come in," Mrs. Gable called from the porch. She was wearing a blue apron with yellow flowers, and her hair was pulled back in a silver knot. "I've got lemonade. Drink it first. It's going to be dusty work."

They went inside. The house smelled like it always smelled — like cinnamon and old books and a tiny bit like the lavender sachets Mrs. Gable kept in drawers. The curtains moved gently in the breeze from the open window. Pudding the cat was asleep on the rug, a round orange comma.

"Drink up," Mrs. Gable said, pouring lemonade into tall glasses.

"Can I pet Pudding?" Noor asked.

"Of course."

"Can I sit on the piano bench?" Tommy asked.

"You may. Don't touch the keys with sticky fingers."

While the others drank their lemonade and petted Pudding and inspected the piano bench, Amaya wandered. This was one of Amaya's favorite things to do at Mrs. Gable's. Mrs. Gable had told her once, "You can look at anything. Just be gentle."

So Amaya looked.

She looked at the painting of the boat on the wall. She looked at the bowl of smooth stones Mrs. Gable had collected from a lake whose name Amaya could never remember. She looked at the framed photograph of Mrs. Gable when she was young, standing next to a tall man with kind eyes, both of them squinting in the sun.

And then Amaya saw the bird.

It was on the low shelf by the window, where the light came through the white curtains and made everything glow a little. It was a porcelain bird, small enough to fit in Amaya's palm, painted a soft blue with a tiny yellow beak and tiny black eyes. Its wings were half-lifted, as if it had just landed, or was just about to fly.

Amaya had seen it before. She had always wanted to hold it.

She looked over her shoulder. The others were in the kitchen now, laughing about something. Mrs. Gable's back was turned.

"Just gentle," Amaya whispered to herself.

She reached out. She lifted the bird.

It was lighter than she expected. Cool in her hand. She turned it slowly. The blue was the color of the sky that morning. The little eyes looked up at her as if they saw her.

And then — she didn't know how it happened, she didn't MEAN for it to happen — the bird slipped.

It didn't just fall. It seemed to jump out of her fingers, as if it had decided to fly away after all.

It hit the wooden floor.

The sound was not loud. It was a small, sharp tink, like a teacup tapping a saucer, and then a smaller tink, like a single raindrop.

Amaya looked down.

The porcelain bird was in three pieces. The body, and one wing, and the tiny yellow beak, which had broken off all by itself and rolled a little way under the edge of the couch.

Amaya's mouth opened. No sound came out.

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Time did a strange thing then.

It stretched out long, like pulled taffy, and at the same time it squeezed in tight, so that Amaya could hear her own heart beating in her ears and also hear the tiny drip of the kitchen faucet and also hear Noor laugh at something Mrs. Gable said.

Her body moved before her mind did.

She dropped to her knees. She scooped up the body of the bird. She scooped up the wing. She crawled under the edge of the couch and pinched up the beak between her fingers.

The pieces were cold in her palm.

Her hands were shaking.

"Amaya?" called Mrs. Gable. "Lemonade!"

"Coming," Amaya said. Her voice sounded high and thin. Not her voice at all.

She looked around. The cushions on the big green couch. The gap between them. Her hand was moving again before she could think. She stuffed the three pieces down into the gap between two cushions, deep, deep, so that no one would see.

Then she sat on the cushion.

She sat very still.

"Amaya!" That was Diego. "You want lemonade or not?"

"Yes," she said. "Just — I'll be there."

She stood up. Her legs felt funny. She walked to the kitchen, and she was surprised how normal her feet looked, one in front of the other, when inside her chest everything was banging around like a bird trapped in a cage.

In the kitchen, Mrs. Gable handed her a glass.

"There you are, love. You look pale. Drink up."

Amaya drank. The lemonade was sweet and sour and it hurt her throat going down.

Jalil was telling a joke. Tommy was laughing with his whole body, the way Tommy always laughed. Mei was studying the ceiling light as if it were a puzzle. Noor had Pudding in her lap and was stroking him very slowly so he would not wake up.

Nobody was looking at Amaya.

Nobody had heard the tink.

"Well," said Mrs. Gable. "Shall we? The garage awaits."

They all trooped out through the kitchen door into the garage, which smelled of dust and motor oil and cardboard. Mrs. Gable showed them the piles. She showed them boxes labeled MR. GABLE — TOOLS and MR. GABLE — BOOKS and MR. GABLE — FISHING. Her voice got a little softer when she said his name.

"I want to keep some things," she said. "And give some things away. You can help me decide. Touch whatever you like. These were his things, and he liked children very much."

The others got to work. Tommy found an old fishing hat and put it on. It slid down over his eyes. Everybody laughed. Mrs. Gable laughed too, a small soft laugh, and she said, "He wore that every Sunday at the lake."

Amaya stood by the door. She tried to smile. The inside of her stomach felt like it had been replaced with a cold fish.

Under the cushion in the living room, right now, the bird was broken.

And she had not told.

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Amaya tried to help. She really did.

She carried a box that was not too heavy. She folded a flannel shirt. She handed Mrs. Gable a framed photograph that had been wrapped in newspaper.

"Oh," Mrs. Gable said. She held the photograph for a long time. "That was our wedding."

Amaya looked at it. A younger Mrs. Gable in a cream-colored dress, her hands full of daisies, laughing. A tall man beside her, not looking at the camera, looking at Mrs. Gable. Looking at her as if she were the only thing in the whole world.

"You look happy," Amaya whispered.

"We were," said Mrs. Gable. "We are."

Amaya didn't understand the are, but she didn't ask.

All afternoon, she kept feeling a strange itch, a pulling at the back of her throat. Every time Mrs. Gable said something kind — every time Mrs. Gable thanked them or brought them crackers on a little blue plate — the itch got worse. Amaya kept thinking of the bird. Under the cushion. In the dark between the cushions. The tiny beak. The broken wing.

But then she thought of Mrs. Gable's thin paper smile.

She thought of the soft way Mrs. Gable said his name.

She thought, If I say it, she will be sad, and I will have made her sad.

And she thought — the thought came fast and ugly, like a spider — maybe nobody will ever find out. Maybe the bird will just be gone. Maybe Mrs. Gable won't even notice.

"Amaya?" said Mei. "You okay?"

Mei had a way of looking at people. It was a quiet look, like a still pond.

"I'm fine," Amaya said. She didn't quite meet Mei's eyes.

"You look green."

"I'm fine."

Mei didn't push. She never did. She just nodded, slowly, and went back to her pile of old magazines.

At four o'clock Mrs. Gable clapped her hands. "Enough for today," she said. "Bless all of you. You've been angels."

"We'll come back next Saturday," Diego said.

"Will you? All of you?"

"All of us," they said together. Well — five of them said it together. Amaya's voice came out a beat late, and a beat quieter.

Mrs. Gable hugged each one of them at the door. When she hugged Amaya, Amaya held on a little tighter than usual and a little longer. Mrs. Gable smelled like lavender and flour.

"Goodbye, little one," Mrs. Gable said. "You be good."

"I will," Amaya whispered into her apron.

And that was the worst lie of all, because she had already not been.

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Amaya walked home alone.

The others biked off in a happy clatter, Jalil ringing his bell, Tommy pretending to be a racing champion. Usually Amaya would have climbed back on Diego's bike and held on tight. Today she wanted to walk.

Halfway home, on the quiet part of Maple Street where the sycamores made a green tunnel, Amaya put her hand in her pocket.

Her fingers found something cold.

She stopped walking.

She didn't remember doing it, but she had — at some point, before she came out of the living room, she had taken the three pieces of the bird back out of the cushion. She had put them in her pocket.

Why?

She didn't know.

She looked around. No one was on the street. A squirrel sat on a fence post watching her with black beady eyes.

Amaya took out the pieces. The body, the wing, the tiny beak. In the dappled afternoon light they looked even more broken than before, because now she could see the jagged white edges where the porcelain had snapped.

She held them in her open palm.

She thought about throwing them into the bushes. She thought about dropping them down the storm drain at the corner. She thought about burying them under the big oak tree where the kids had their gatherings.

But her hand would not move.

The bird's little painted eye was looking at her.

Amaya closed her fingers around the pieces. She put them back in her pocket.

She walked the rest of the way home very slowly.

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At home, Mama Rosa was making enchiladas, and Mama Jean was reading the newspaper at the kitchen table, and both of them looked up and smiled when Amaya came in.

"There's my helper," Mama Jean said. "How was Mrs. Gable's?"

"Fine."

"Just fine?"

"Fine," Amaya said, and she went straight upstairs.

She shut her bedroom door. She sat on the edge of her bed. She took the pieces of the bird out of her pocket and set them on her nightstand, behind her book. She arranged them so that you almost couldn't see them unless you were looking.

Then she went back down for dinner.

Mama Rosa's enchiladas were Amaya's favorite thing in the world. Tonight, Amaya could not eat them.

"Baby, what's wrong?"

"My stomach hurts."

Mama Rosa put down her fork. Mama Jean put down the paper. They both looked at Amaya with the full bright beam of mom-attention, which is a very strong light.

"Where does it hurt?"

Amaya pointed at her belly button.

"Sharp or dull?"

"Just — hurts."

"Did you eat something at Mrs. Gable's?"

"Crackers. And lemonade."

"Hmm," said Mama Jean. She put her hand on Amaya's forehead. "No fever. You want to lie down?"

Amaya nodded.

"Okay, baby. Go up. I'll bring you some toast in a little bit."

Amaya crawled into bed with all her clothes on. She pulled the covers up to her chin. She could hear her mothers murmuring downstairs, quiet voices like water running under a door.

Her stomach hurt.

It really did hurt. But it wasn't the kind of hurt that crackers and lemonade made. It was a different hurt, deeper, as if something inside her had gotten tangled and was pulling.

She thought, if I tell, the hurt will go.

She thought, but what about Mrs. Gable.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Mama Jean came up with toast. Amaya pretended to be asleep. Mama Jean set the plate down quietly and kissed her hair and whispered, "Sleep it off, sweetheart." She left the door open a crack the way Amaya liked.

Amaya lay in the dark.

She could see the pieces of the bird on the nightstand, a pale shape behind her book. They glowed a little in the streetlight.

She did not sleep for a long, long time.

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The sun came up but Amaya didn't want to.

"Amaya," called Mama Rosa, "pancakes!"

"Not hungry."

"Baby, come down."

She came down. She sat at the table. She pushed her pancake around with her fork until it was in pieces.

"You're quiet," said Mama Jean.

"I'm always quiet."

"No, you're not," said Mama Rosa. "You're usually loud."

Amaya didn't answer.

Mama Rosa and Mama Jean looked at each other the way they did when they were having a conversation without words. Then Mama Rosa said, "You want to go play with the kids?"

"Okay."

She went. But when she got to the tree — the big oak at the corner of Maple and Cedar, where all the kids met — she didn't feel like playing.

Jalil was drawing in chalk on the sidewalk. Mei was sitting with her back against the trunk reading a book. Tommy and Diego were arguing about whether squirrels could remember faces. Noor was making a crown of dandelions.

"Amaya!" Noor said. "I made you a crown."

"I don't want a crown."

Noor's face fell a little. She was only seven.

"Sorry," Amaya said quickly. "Sorry, Noor. Thank you."

She took the crown. She put it on her head. It was a little too big and it slid down over one eye.

"You look funny," Tommy said, laughing.

"Stop it," Amaya snapped.

Tommy's laugh stopped. "Geez. Okay."

Jalil looked up from his chalk. Diego looked up from the squirrel argument. Mei looked up from her book.

Amaya stood there in the middle of them with the crown on her head and her arms crossed and her face hot.

"What's WRONG with you?" Diego said.

"Nothing!"

"Something."

"NOTHING, Diego, leave me alone!"

She sat down on the grass with her back to them. She could feel the dandelion crown slipping. She yanked it off and threw it.

Nobody said anything for a while.

Then Mei, without putting down her book, said quietly, "Amaya. Did something happen?"

"No."

"Okay."

And Mei went back to reading.

That was the worst part. Mei didn't push. Mei didn't get mad back. Mei just accepted the no, as if a no was a thing Amaya was allowed to have, even if it wasn't true.

Amaya's throat started to hurt.

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Diego did not have Mei's quietness. Diego was a detective in his own head. He had read three books about detectives and he had a notebook where he wrote down clues.

He came and sat next to Amaya on the grass.

"Okay," he said. "Something is up."

"No."

"Yes. Because yesterday you were weird and today you are weirder and when somebody gets weirder there is always a reason."

"Leave me alone."

"I'm not going to."

Amaya looked at him sideways. Diego's face was close to hers. His eyes were big and brown and very serious.

"Is it something at home?" he said.

"No."

"Did someone say something mean?"

"No."

"Did YOU do something?"

Amaya's mouth twitched.

"AHA," said Diego. "You did something."

"Shut up."

"What did you do?"

"Nothing."

"Amaya."

"DIEGO."

They glared at each other. Amaya's eyes were starting to sting. Diego saw it. His voice got softer.

"Tell me," he said. "I won't tell anybody."

She almost did. She almost opened her mouth and let it out — the bird, the cushion, the pocket, all of it. But then she saw Mrs. Gable's face in her head, Mrs. Gable saying, he liked children very much, Mrs. Gable with her paper smile.

"I can't," Amaya whispered.

"Amaya. You HAVE to tell. Whatever it is. You have to."

"Why?"

"Because." Diego stopped. He wasn't sure why. He was eight, and he felt the truth of it in his chest, but he didn't have the words yet. "Because. You just have to."

"I don't have to do anything," Amaya said.

And she stood up and walked away.

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Amaya walked to the other side of the oak tree and sat down on the bumpy roots. Her back was to everyone. She could hear Tommy and Noor playing now, some game with a ball. She could hear Diego saying something in a low voice to Jalil.

She dug her fingers into the dirt.

After a little while, someone sat down next to her.

She didn't turn around, but she knew from the quietness who it was.

"Hi," said Mei.

"Hi."

They sat for a minute without talking. Mei pulled up a blade of grass and split it down the middle with her thumbnail.

"When I was five," Mei said, "my grandmother told me a story. Do you want to hear it?"

Amaya shrugged.

"I'll tell it anyway," Mei said.

Mei's voice was not loud. It was the kind of voice that made you lean in a little.

"She said there were two kinds of tears. There were the tears that came when you were hurt, from outside. Those were like rain that falls on a roof. It runs off, it's over.

"But there were other tears. Honest tears. Tears that came when you had something inside you — something heavy — and you finally let it out. Those tears, she said, were like rain that falls on a garden.

"She said, Mei, when you cry honest tears, flowers grow."

Amaya was very still.

"I didn't understand when I was five," Mei said. "But I think I understand now, maybe a little. My grandmother said when people tell the truth, even when it's hard, a little flower grows inside them. And every true word is another drop of rain."

"What if the truth makes somebody sad?" Amaya whispered.

"It might."

"Then isn't it better not to tell?"

Mei thought about this for a long time. She split another blade of grass.

"I don't think so," she said. "Because if you don't tell, you're the one who's sad. And so is the other person — just later. The sad finds its way out."

Amaya's eyes were full. She blinked hard.

"Also," Mei said, "I don't know everything. I'm only seven. But my grandmother lived a long time. She said, honest hearts are light. She said, secrets are stones."

"Stones?"

"In your pocket. You carry them around. And one stone, okay. But two, three, four — and soon you can't walk."

Amaya's hand moved, without her meaning it to, to her pocket. Today there were no pieces in it. She had left them on her nightstand. But she could feel them anyway, as if she were still carrying them. As if she had been carrying them since yesterday afternoon, and her legs were tired.

She did not cry. Not yet. But something inside her moved, a little, the way a door moves when the wind pushes it but does not open it.

"Thanks," she said, very small.

"Anytime," Mei said.

And Mei got up and walked back to her book, and did not say another word about it.

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Across the street and one house down, Mrs. Gable was dusting.

She dusted her living room every Sunday afternoon. She had done this for forty-three years. First with her husband singing in the other room, off-key, something from the radio. Then, after he was gone, alone — but not alone, because she liked to talk to him sometimes while she dusted, telling him about her week.

"The children came yesterday," she said to the photograph on the piano. "Six of them. Loud as a pack of foxes. I love them, Henry."

She dusted the piano top. She dusted the lamp. She dusted the bowl of smooth lake stones.

She came to the low shelf by the window.

She stopped.

She knew her shelves. She knew them the way you know your own hand.

There was a gap.

Right there — between the little wooden box and the framed poem — there was a gap. Where the porcelain bird should have been.

Mrs. Gable set down her dust cloth.

She looked very carefully along the shelf. Behind the wooden box. Beside the poem. On the floor under the shelf. Nothing.

She stood up slowly, because her knees were not what they used to be.

"Oh," she said.

The bird had been Henry's last birthday gift to her. Forty years ago, plus one. He had given it to her in a little blue box tied with brown string, and he had said, "A bird to keep you company when I'm working late."

He had been working late a lot that year.

And then, six months later, he had not come home at all.

Mrs. Gable stood at the shelf for a long time. She did not cry. She had done her crying a long time ago, most of it. But her hand went to her mouth, and her mouth trembled a little.

Then she let her hand down.

"Well," she said, to no one in particular. Or maybe to Henry.

She thought of the children. She thought of small hands that might have picked up the bird and maybe — she didn't like to think it — maybe dropped it. Maybe been afraid to say.

Mrs. Gable picked up her dust cloth again. She finished her dusting. She did not look at the empty place on the shelf again that afternoon, but she felt it, the way you feel a missing tooth with your tongue.

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On Monday, Amaya was still not herself.

She did not eat her oatmeal. She did not want to walk to school with Jalil, who came by every morning to get her. She said her stomach hurt. Mama Rosa said okay, and kept her home.

Mama Rosa was a nurse. She knew real stomach aches from other kinds.

"Baby," she said, sitting on the edge of Amaya's bed. "I think your stomach is sad."

"Stomachs don't get sad."

"Mine does. When I'm worried, my stomach is the first to know."

Amaya didn't answer.

"Do you want to tell me something?"

Amaya shook her head.

"Okay. No pressure. But I'm going to be downstairs, and the kettle is on, and whenever you want, you can come down and find me."

She kissed Amaya's forehead. She got up to go.

At the door, she stopped. She had bent down to pick up something off the floor. It was Amaya's jeans from yesterday, crumpled in a heap.

"I'm going to put these in the wash."

"Mama — no, leave them."

"Why?"

Amaya couldn't answer. Her face got very hot.

Mama Rosa tilted her head. She was not a loud person. But she saw things. She checked pockets before washing, because Mama Rosa had once washed a twenty-dollar bill and a library card, and she had learned her lesson.

She reached into the right pocket. Empty.

She reached into the left pocket.

She pulled out her hand.

In her palm were three pieces of porcelain. A little blue body. A little blue wing. A tiny yellow beak.

Mama Rosa looked at the pieces. She looked at Amaya. Amaya's whole face was wet now, suddenly, though Amaya had not felt it starting.

Mama Rosa came and sat on the bed again.

"Oh, baby," she said.

Amaya began to sob. Big, shaking, open-mouthed sobs, the kind a six-year-old cries when something has been too big to hold for too long. Mama Rosa put her arms around her and held her. She did not say anything for a while. She just held on.

When the sobs quieted a little, Mama Rosa said, "Is this from Mrs. Gable's?"

Amaya nodded against her shoulder.

"And you took it?"

"I broke it," Amaya whispered. "I broke it and I hid it and I didn't tell."

Mama Rosa did not say, oh no. She did not say, how could you. She said, very gently, "Come here."

She scooped Amaya onto her lap. Amaya was too big for this, really, but also not. She curled up like a snail.

"Tell me," said Mama Rosa.

Amaya told her. The whole thing. The porcelain bird on the shelf. The way it had slipped. The cushion. The pocket. The long, sick, sleepless night.

Mama Rosa listened. She didn't interrupt. When Amaya was done, she just stroked her hair.

"I didn't MEAN to," Amaya said.

"I know, baby."

"I didn't MEAN to break it."

"Of course you didn't."

"But I hid it. I hid it on purpose."

"Yes."

Amaya pressed her face into Mama Rosa's shoulder. "It was her husband's," she whispered. "It was a gift from her husband."

Mama Rosa was quiet. Then she said, "Well. Then I think there's something we need to do."

Amaya nodded. She knew.

"Together?" she whispered.

"Together."

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Mama Jean came home from work early. Both her moms walked with Amaya down Maple Street, one on each side. Mama Jean was holding the little blue velvet pouch they had put the pieces into.

Amaya was holding their hands.

It was a short walk. It felt very long.

"What if she yells?" Amaya said.

"She might," Mama Rosa said. "Or she might not. People surprise us."

"What if she never forgives me?"

"Then we'll have to keep asking," Mama Jean said. "For as long as it takes."

"What if —"

"Amaya," said Mama Rosa. She stopped walking. She turned so she could look right in Amaya's eyes. "We are going because it's the right thing to do. Not because we know what will happen. The not-knowing is part of it. Okay?"

Amaya swallowed. "Okay."

They started walking again.

At the bottom of Mrs. Gable's steps, Amaya stopped. Her feet would not go up.

Mama Jean crouched down. "I'm going to knock. You don't have to do that part. Okay?"

Amaya nodded.

Mama Jean knocked.

Mrs. Gable opened the door. She had her blue apron on. Her face lit up a little when she saw Amaya — and then went quiet when she saw Amaya's face.

"Hello," said Mama Rosa. "Mrs. Gable, do you have a minute? Amaya has something she needs to tell you."

Mrs. Gable looked at Amaya for a long moment. Her eyes were soft and tired.

"Come in," she said. "All of you. Come in."

They sat in the living room. Amaya sat on the couch — not on the cushion this time, but next to it. Mrs. Gable sat in her big armchair. Mama Rosa and Mama Jean stood near the doorway, which Amaya thought was the bravest thing they had done all day, because her moms were always the ones with the words.

Amaya's moms did not speak.

This part was hers.

Amaya opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

She tried again. "I —"

Her throat closed.

Mrs. Gable waited. She did not hurry her.

Amaya held out the little velvet pouch. Her hand was shaking.

Mrs. Gable took it.

She opened it.

She saw what was inside.

Her face — Amaya watched it — did the thing Amaya had been afraid of, and also something else.

Mrs. Gable's eyes filled up.

"Oh," she said. Her voice was very small. "Oh, Henry's little bird."

A tear slid down her cheek. She did not wipe it away.

"I broke it," Amaya whispered. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I hid it. I didn't mean to, but I hid it, and that was worse."

Mrs. Gable looked at the pieces in her palm. She closed her hand around them very gently, as if they were a living thing.

Then she looked up at Amaya.

"Come here, little one," she said.

Amaya went. She didn't know what was going to happen. Mrs. Gable put an arm around her and pulled her close. Amaya was half-standing, half-leaning.

"I'm so, so sorry," Amaya said again, into the blue apron.

"I know you are, love."

"Are you mad?"

Mrs. Gable was quiet. "I am sad," she said. "But I'm not mad. And I'm going to tell you why."

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Mrs. Gable held the pieces in her lap. Amaya sat down on the rug at her feet. Mama Rosa and Mama Jean sat down too, very quietly, on the couch.

"When I was a little girl," Mrs. Gable said, "I was about your age. Maybe seven. My mother had a music box. Have you ever seen a music box?"

Amaya nodded.

"It was wooden, with a little ballerina inside, who would spin when you opened the lid. It played a song called — well, it doesn't matter now what song. My mother loved it. It had been her mother's, before her. My grandmother, whom I never met."

Mrs. Gable's eyes were far away.

"One afternoon my mother was out at the market. I was not supposed to touch the music box. I went into her bedroom. I opened the lid. I wound the little key. I watched the ballerina spin.

"And then I heard my mother's key in the door downstairs. I got frightened. I snapped the lid shut too fast. Something inside — some tiny piece, I never knew what — broke. The music box still played, but the ballerina didn't spin anymore. She just stood still while the music went.

"My mother came up and found me. She asked, 'Did you touch my music box?' And I said, 'No, Mama. I didn't.'"

Mrs. Gable took a breath.

"She didn't push. She took my word. But every time, after that, for years, she would open the music box and the ballerina wouldn't spin, and she would say, 'I wonder what happened.' And I would look at the floor. And I wouldn't say.

"My mother died when I was twenty-four. I never told her. Do you know how long I've been carrying that? Sixty years."

Amaya's eyes were full again.

"I'm telling you this," Mrs. Gable said softly, "because I know the thing you are feeling. I know it in my bones. And I know what it's like to wait too long. And I am so — so — glad you did not wait too long."

"I almost did," Amaya whispered.

"But you didn't. You came today. That's what matters."

"I'm still so sorry about the bird."

"I know. I'm sorry too. He loved that bird." Mrs. Gable looked down at the pieces. "But you know what? I think something can still be done."

"What?"

"Glue, love. We have glue."

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Mrs. Gable had a little tube of clear glue in a kitchen drawer. They all sat at the kitchen table — Mrs. Gable and Amaya and Mama Rosa and Mama Jean. Mrs. Gable spread a newspaper down.

She showed Amaya how to put a tiny, tiny dot of glue on the edge of the wing.

"Not too much," she said. "Or it will ooze."

Amaya pressed the wing to the body. She held it for one whole minute while Mrs. Gable counted.

"Now the beak," Mrs. Gable said.

Amaya put a tiny dot on the beak. She pressed.

"Perfect."

When they were done, the bird stood on the newspaper, a little wobbly. You could see the cracks. Two thin dark lines, where the breaks had been. The bird was not the way it had been before.

"It's not the same," Amaya said sadly.

Mrs. Gable looked at the bird. She turned her head a little.

"No," she said. "It isn't. But I like it this way."

"Really?"

"Really. You see these lines? These are the places where it broke. And got put back. And that is — well. That is a story now. That is a story about a very brave six-year-old girl who told the truth."

"It wasn't brave. I cried."

"Brave people cry, Amaya. Don't let anyone tell you different."

Amaya looked at the bird. At the thin dark cracks. And she thought — the thought came slowly, like a sunrise — that maybe the cracks were pretty, in their own way. Like veins in a leaf. Like the lines in Mrs. Gable's hands when Mrs. Gable held her.

Mrs. Gable put the bird back on the low shelf by the window. In the same spot as before.

"There," she said. "Home."

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Outside, the sun was starting to go orange over the sycamores. Mama Jean took Amaya's hand. Mama Rosa took her other hand.

They walked in silence for a little while.

Amaya's stomach, she noticed, did not hurt anymore.

It felt — hollow, maybe. But a good hollow. Like after you've cried and emptied out.

"Mama?" she said.

"Mm?"

"My stomach's better."

"I thought it might be."

"How did you know?"

Mama Rosa thought about it. "I didn't know," she said. "I hoped. Sometimes our bodies hold on to the hard things until we put them down. And when we put them down, our bodies let go too."

"Oh."

They walked.

"Mama?"

"Mm?"

"Mrs. Gable said her mother never knew about the music box."

"Yes, baby."

"I'm glad I didn't wait that long."

Mama Rosa's hand squeezed hers.

"Me too," she said.

They walked up Maple Street as the streetlights began, one by one, to flicker on.

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On Saturday — a full week after the day of the bird — the six of them met at the oak tree. It was the biggest kid-meeting they had all week. Everyone had heard a little, from somebody, but nobody had heard the whole story.

Amaya had asked if she could tell it.

She climbed up on the low root, so she was a little higher than everyone. Noor sat cross-legged in front of her. Tommy was draped over a low branch. Jalil was sitting neatly with his hands folded, because Jalil sat neatly for important things. Mei was leaning on the trunk. Diego stood at the back with his arms crossed, trying to look like he hadn't been worried sick.

"Okay," Amaya said. Her voice was a little shaky, but that was all right.

She told them. She told it all. The bird, the shelf, the tink, the cushion. The pocket. The sleepless night. Her moms and the jeans. The walk to Mrs. Gable's. Mrs. Gable's story about the music box. The glue.

When she got to the end, nobody spoke for a minute. The wind moved the leaves of the oak.

"Wow," said Tommy.

"It was a dumb thing to do," Amaya said quickly. "The hiding part. Not the breaking. Anybody could break something."

"Yeah," said Diego. "The hiding was the bad part."

"Diego," Mei said, with a little edge.

"What? She's the one who said it."

Amaya laughed, a small surprised laugh. "It's true, though. Diego's right. I knew the whole time it was wrong. My stomach knew. I didn't listen."

"What does it feel like now?" Noor asked. "Now that you told?"

Amaya had thought about this. She had been thinking about it for days.

"It feels," she said, "like — you know how your backpack feels when you finally take it off after school?"

"YES," said Tommy, who had a big heavy backpack.

"Like that. Like my whole me was carrying a backpack, and I didn't even know, and then I put it down."

"Light," said Mei, quietly. "You feel light."

"Light," Amaya said. "Yeah."

Jalil nodded slowly, the way he did when he was filing something away.

"I think," he said, "I'm going to try to be more light. Like — I have a couple of things I haven't told my dad."

"Like what?" Diego said.

"Like I broke the lamp in the den."

"JALIL!"

"I'm going to tell him tonight."

"Oh boy."

"He'll be mad. But then it'll be over. Right, Amaya?"

Amaya looked at him. "It'll be over," she said. "And he'll still love you."

"Yeah," Jalil said. "He will."

They sat there under the oak for a long time. The sun moved through the leaves. At one point Mrs. Gable came out of her house across the way and waved. Amaya waved back with her whole arm. Mrs. Gable put her hand on her heart for a second, then went back inside.

The porcelain bird, Amaya knew, was on its shelf. With its two thin cracks. Looking at the sun through the white curtains.

Maybe all things are like that.

Maybe people are, too.

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That night, when Amaya was in bed, Mama Jean came in to say good night. She sat on the edge of the bed.

"Big day," she said.

"Yeah."

"How's the stomach?"

"Good."

"How's the heart?"

Amaya thought. "Also good," she said. "Heavy a little. But good heavy. Not bad heavy."

"That makes sense."

"Mama?"

"Mm?"

"I don't want to do that again. The hiding part."

"I hope you don't."

"But — what if I do? What if I break something and I get scared again?"

Mama Jean thought about this. She was not in a hurry to answer. This was one of the things Amaya loved about her moms — they did not rush their answers.

"I think," Mama Jean said, "you might. You're six. You're going to be scared of lots of things for a long time. But here's what I think, baby. Every time you tell the truth, it gets a tiny bit easier. Not easy. But easier. And one day, telling might be the first thing you think of, not the last."

"Really?"

"Really. It's like a muscle."

"Like arms."

"Like arms."

Amaya flexed her little arm. Mama Jean pretended to be very impressed.

"Mighty," she said.

"Mama?"

"Mm?"

"I love Mrs. Gable."

"I know you do, sweetheart."

"I'm glad she's our neighbor."

"Me too."

Mama Jean kissed her forehead. She turned out the light. She left the door open a crack. Down the hall, Mama Rosa was humming something in the kitchen.

In the dark, Amaya closed her eyes.

She thought of the bird on the shelf. She thought of Mrs. Gable's mother and the music box that wouldn't spin. She thought of Mei's grandmother, who had died before Amaya was born but whose story about rain and flowers was now in Amaya's head, growing.

She thought of Diego saying you have to tell, and being right.

She thought of Mama Rosa's hand in her jeans pocket, finding what Amaya had been too small to give up on her own.

Amaya turned over. The sheets were cool. Somewhere outside, a real bird — not a porcelain one, a real living one — made a soft sound in the sycamores, like a small hello to the moon.

Amaya slept.

And this time, she slept the whole night through.

THE END

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A NOTE FROM CRIMSON ARK PUBLISHING

Dear reader,

When we finally tell, the people who love us don't disappear. They come closer. They sit with us. Sometimes, like Mrs. Gable, they tell us a story of their own, and we learn that everybody has carried something heavy, and that being honest is how we help each other carry.

The great teacher Bahá'u'lláh taught that truthfulness is the foundation of every good thing in us. And 'Abdu'l-Bahá said that when we speak honestly, we become light. Not light like not-heavy, but light like the shining kind. The kind that helps other people find their way, too.

If you have something you're hiding right now, however small, I hope Amaya's story gives you a little courage. It will be all right. Love is waiting on the other side of your true words.

— Crimson Ark Publishing

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