She didn't tell Nora anything.
Not because she was keeping a secret exactly. More because some things needed to arrive in their own time without being anticipated into something larger than they were.
Nora came home from school with the full account of a Thursday that had included a nature project involving leaves and a debate about whether a very large leaf counted as one leaf or potentially two, which had divided the butterfly class with some passion.
Julia listened to all of it.
Made dinner.
The ordinary machinery of an evening.
Daniel arrived at seven.
Nora met him at the door with the leaf preserved between two pieces of wax paper, enormous, the size of her face, which she presented as evidence in the ongoing debate. Daniel examined it seriously and gave his ruling which sati
