Free If You Come Softly by Jacqueline Woodson Page A

she’d leave,” I said again. “And after she came back, I never believed she’d stay.”
    “You believe it now?” Miah asked.
    “I don’t think I care so much anymore.” I folded the empty Snickers wrapper over and over itself. “I survived the first time. It makes me know I can always survive. But there’s this other part of me that doesn’t believe anyone’s ever going to stay. Anywhere.”
    “Wonder why she came back.” Miah said.
    I looked up into the leaves and squinted, liking the way the green twisted and blurred in the sunlight. I felt lighter somehow. Free. “I asked her. She said it was because our family was all she knew—all she had. Squint like this, Miah. And see what it does to the leaves.”
    Miah looked up and squinted, then smiled. “Feels like I’m spinning,” he said softly. “Or like the whole world is spinning and I’m the only thing on it that’s not moving.”
    I felt his hand closing over mine and swallowed. It felt warm and soft and good.
    I closed my eyes, wanting to stay this way always, with the sun warm against my face and Miah’s hand on mine.
    “There’s this poem,” he said, “that my moms used to read to me. ‘If you come as softly/as the wind within the trees./You may hear what I hear./See what sorrow sees./If you come as lightly/as threading dew,/I will take you gladly,/nor ask more of you.’/When you told me that thing about Marion, it made me think of it. The way stuff and people come and go.”
    “It’s pretty, that poem.” I closed my eyes. Maybe people were always coming toward each other—from the beginning of their lives. Maybe Miah had always been coming toward me, to this moment, sitting in Central Park holding hands. Coming softly.
    “You ever wish you were small again, Ellie? That there was somebody still tucking you in and reading you stories and poetry?”
    I turned my hand over and laced my fingers in his. His hand was so soft and warm. Above us, the leaves fluttered, strips of sun streaming gold down through them. I swallowed.
    “All the time,” I whispered.
    “Me too. You gonna let me kiss you, Ellie?”
    I nodded, feeling my stomach rise and dip, rise and dip, until Miah’s lips were on mine, soft and warm as his hand.
    Then everything grew quiet and still and perfect.

Chapter 12
    His FATHER’S LIGHT WAS ON. MIAH CLIMBED THE stairs slowly and unlocked the outside door. He looked over his shoulder at his mother’s window. Dark. He wondered if she was out or sitting alone in the darkness.
    “That you, Miah-man?” his father called.
    “Yeah.”
    “Come on into the living room and meet some people.”
    Miah frowned. He didn’t want to meet some people. He wanted to go up to his room, lie on his bed, and think about Ellie. About today in the park. About the way her lips felt against his. Different. The same. Right And his hand over hers—the brown and the white, her tiny fingers, the silver band on her thumb, her eyes, the way they just kept on looking and looking deeper and deeper inside of him. No one had ever looked at him like that, like they wanted to know every single thing about him. Like everything he had to say mattered. Really mattered.
    “Miah ... ?”
    “Be right there,” he said, taking off his jacket and loosening his tie. He could hear voices and laughter—Lois’s laughter rising up higher than everyone else’s. It had always been like this-the house full of people. When his mother and father were still together, he had liked it. But heading into the room now, he realized again how rarely he got to be alone with his father for more than a short time.
    “This my boy I talk so much about.” His father grinned. He was sitting in an overstuffed chair, a beer on the table beside him. Lois was leaning on the chair behind him, her arms draped around his shoulders. She was pretty-with curly hair and clear red brown skin. Not as pretty as his mama but pretty enough to turn heads. His father looked good this evening,