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When I turn around Ethan is in the doorway of the living room, watching me.

"What?" I say.

"Nothing." He shifts his weight. "You found the boot."

"I said I would."

"You did." He clears his throat. "I'll put the kettle on."

We are both being very, very good.

At six o'clock on the dot, Ruth comes through the front door with Faith in tow. Faith bursts into the hall with a large sheet of paper held out in front of her, her coat hanging off one shoulder and her cheeks bright pink from the cold.

"Carolina! Carolina! I made you something."

"Did you?"

"In Sunday school. We had to draw our family." She thrusts the paper at me. "Mrs. Pell said I could draw anyone I wanted."

I take it.

It's a large sheet of construction paper covered in crayon, bright and crooked and utterly confident. A tree takes up the whole left side of the page, a huge round tree dotted with red circles. Under it stand three figures holding hands. The tallest has dark scribbled hair and a brown rectangle for a body. In the middle there's a small figure in yellow boots. On the right, with long brown hair that reaches nearly to her knees, stands a woman holding a frying pan over her head. She has a round yellow face and two dots for eyes.

On her left cheek, in black crayon, Faith has drawn one small dot.

A dimple.

I can't breathe for a moment. I look at the dot. I look at the pan, the tree, the three of us under it, and the little yellow boots. The paper starts to shake slightly in my hands.

"That's you," Faith says. "I gave you the frying pan, because you're protecting us."

"It's beautiful." My voice comes out thick. I clear my throat. "It's the most beautiful thing anyone's ever drawn me."

"You can keep it."

"I'd love to."

"She was very firm about it," Ruth says. She's still in the doorway, with the pie carrier hooked over her arm. Her eyes on my face are gentle and a little too perceptive. "The teacher said family could be anyone, and she wouldn't change a line."

"Thank you, Faith."

"And you're coming for Thanksgiving," Faith adds, as if settling a minor point of logistics.

Behind me, I feel Ethan go still in the kitchen doorway.

"Thanksgiving?" I say.

"We do it at Nana's. There's always too much food. You can sit next to me, and I'll show you the fox in the stuffing. Daddy makes it look like a fox every year."

"We have plenty of room," Ruth says mildly. "Nell always brought a pie to the church supper. I thought, if you were around, and the orchard was keeping you here..." She lets it trail off. Her face is so kind that I'd like to sit down on the bench with the boots and put my head in my hands.

"That's very generous," I say.

"Will you come?"

"I don't know yet, sweetheart." I crouch down. It takes a moment, because I'm not agile at the best of times and my legs feel shaky, but I get down to her level and hold the drawing against my chest. "I want to tell you the truth. I don't know what I'll be doing at Thanksgiving. I don't want to say yes and then not be there."

Her face does something complicated. Then she nods, solemnly, the way she does when a witness has given a sound statement.