Back in my room, I immediately set Julian to work on his assigned task: teaching Elva more magic tricks. This time he had a pack of playing cards and started to show Elva how to shuffle them. Elva’s tiny hands could hardly wrap around the deck. When she tried to shuffle like he showed her, it made a big mess.
Elva looked at the mess nervously at first, then her wide eyes found Julian’s. She probably expected him to yell at her.
Instead, he just laughed. “We’ll work on that.”
Seeing his bright smile and laugh, Elva immediately mimicked it, until they both were a giggling mess in a sea of cards.
I couldn’t help but feel warmth watching them. It was nice to see so many people I care about making each other happy.
I wondered if some of my hostility was related to the changes in Julian. He
