She wasn’t surprised when he came immediately. Her nephew was a typical moody teenager on the outside, but deep down, he had always been a good-hearted boy.
And I’m going to make sure he stays that way.
“Cody, would you maybe read to the kids, or play something for them?” she asked. “I just need to go check on Bennet.”
“Sure,” he said, looking only slightly panicked.
His deep voice still surprised her from time to time. She couldn’t help thinking of him as a little boy.
“Thank you,” she said, hurrying over to the bathroom.
The library architect must have been a parent or at the very least a thoughtful soul. There were bathrooms right off the children’s section, and that had turned out to be a blessing so many times, for so many reasons.
Bella opened the door, bracing herself for what she was going to find inside. She truly loved children, books, and music, so she had pretty much the perfect job. But there were definitely some less than glamorous aspects of working with little kids.
“Hi, Bennet,” she called out in her gentlest voice as she stepped in. “How can I help?”
“I’m stuck,” a small voice said sadly from the last stall.
“You’re…stuck?” she asked. “Can I try the handle?”
“Okay,”Bennet said.
The door to the stall opened instantly, but then she saw what he meant.
Bennet had been wearing a black and red checked flannel under a pair of denim overalls today. He looked like an adorable little boy on a holiday card, but it wasn’t the easiest outfit for a barely five-year-old to navigate for the bathroom.
Now poor Bennet was tangled up like a kitten in a ball of yarn. He’d made a real puzzle out of the overall straps and even the shirt, which he had, for mysterious reasons known only to himself, fully unbuttoned as part of his bathroom trip.
“Is it okay if I help you?” Bella asked.
Bennet nodded his head up and down, a solemn expression in his eyes.
“Okay,” she told him. “Let’s start by taking the overalls down a little and untangling them so we can pull them back up nice and neatly.”
At least his underpants were on correctly, and his overall straps had miraculously not ended up in the toilet at any point during his entanglement.
She had him fully dressed again in a minute or two, and even showed him quickly how to lower the overalls just by undoing one strap next time.
“Ready to go back out?” she asked him.
He answered by taking her hand and leading her back out of the stall. They both washed their hands, and then he grabbed hers again, a pleased expression on his face as they rejoined his friends out in the library, as if maybe he had been the one to helpherout of a jam.
She was glad to see Cody sitting on the floor with the kids. He wasn’t playing his guitar or reading to them, but he was talking with them earnestly, and letting them play with the zipper on his hoodie.
This is what growth looks like, she told herself firmly.
When Cody first came to live with her after Harper passed away, Bella had been afraid she would never be able to bring the sad, quiet boy out of his shell at all.
But seeing him now with the little kids warmed her heart. The children were so sweet and loving that it was pretty much impossible to resist them. And she could see by Cody’s crooked half-smile that he was getting a kick out of hanging out with them.
When the children spotted her, they began asking for another book. But the parents were already filing in to pick up the kids now, and that meant it was time to get Cody to his guitar lesson.
She headed over to get him, but one of the moms got to him first.
“Are you Tag Lawrence’s boy?” Emmy’s mom asked Cody.
He shook his head without making eye contact, but Bella could see an expression of panic flash across his face before he shut it down, replacing it with the wooden look of an awkward teen.
