She wiped her eyes.

“I thought about you both too,” she said. “All the time. Especially when things got hard.”

I thought I understood now. I thought she’d come to give back something from our past. To say she was sorry. To close the circle.

But I was beginning to suspect she had something else in mind.

The way she kept looking at the box. The way she kept glancing at me, like she was working up to something.

“Were things hard?” I asked carefully. “Growing up?”

“Sometimes,” Ivy said. “My aunt tried. But we moved around so much. Eleven schools. I counted once. Eleven schools in ten years. I never stayed anywhere long enough to have a best friend.”

I squeezed her hand.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “You gave me something. Something that stayed with me. Through all of it.”

She reached into the box. She picked up the little bronze medal. The one from when I was nine. With the faded ribbon.

“Every new school,” she said, “every new town, every time I felt like I couldn’t do something. Like I’d fall. I’d remember what you said about the bronze ones. About being brave enough to try.”

I smiled. I couldn’t help it.

“Did you keep dancing?” I asked.

She laughed. The hiccup laugh.

“Actually,” she said, “I became a dance instructor.”

I nearly dropped the gold medal.

“You did?”

She nodded. She was smiling now. That crooked smile.

“In every town we moved to, the first thing I’d do was find the cheapest dance class,” she said. “Rec centers. YMCAs. Church basements. Wherever I could go for free, or almost free. And I’d stand in the back row and copy everything.” She shrugged. “Just like I did in your studio.”

“And now?”

“And now I teach,” she said. “Contemporary and ballroom. And a little jazz.”

She took a breath.

“And I opened my own studio,” she said. “Last year. A little one. In Columbus.”

Daniel slapped his hand down on the kitchen table so hard the coffee cups jumped.

“Would you look at that!” he said. “Would you look at that! Maggie! Did you hear that?”

I couldn’t stop staring at her.

“You became a teacher?” I said.

“Just like you,” Ivy said.

I thought that was Ivy’s biggest surprise.

But she had something even bigger planned.

She reached into the wooden box again. Under the medals. All the way at the bottom.

“Actually,” she said, “there’s something else I need to show you.”

She pulled out a folded piece of paper.

It was old. Soft, like fabric. Folded so many times the creases had worn almost all the way through. It had been taped back together in two places.

She unfolded it very carefully on the table.

Childish handwriting covered both sides. In crayon. Purple and green and orange.

“Do you remember this?” she said.

I looked down at it.

At the top, in big purple crayon letters, it said:

OUR DREAM LIST.

I laughed softly. My hand went to my mouth.

“We made this after watching that movie,” I said. “The one about the girl with the magic coin. We sat right here. At this table.”

“You said everyone should have something to dream about,” Ivy said.

I started reading.

Get a puppy.

Eat ice cream for breakfast.

Learn to do five spins without falling.

Go to the ocean.

See Margaret dance on a real stage.

Daniel learns to dance. (Probably impossible.)

Daniel read that one over my shoulder and made an outraged noise.

Ivy laughed.

Then I got to the very last line.

The secret one. The one she’d folded over and put her arm across, eighteen years ago, so I couldn’t see it.

It was written in green crayon. Very carefully. You could see where she’d pressed so hard the crayon had almost torn the paper.

When I grow up, I’ll buy us a house where nobody has to leave.

My vision blurred.

I couldn’t see the words anymore.

“You wrote this?” I whispered.

“You helped me spell nobody,” Ivy said.

I remembered.

I remembered that night. Sitting on the kitchen floor eating popsicles. Grape for her, cherry for me. Ivy asking How do you spell nobody? With the crayon held over the paper. Her tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth.

I’d spelled it for her. N-O-B-O-D-Y.

And I’d never known what she was using it for.

“You really kept this?” I said. “All these years?”

“Of course,” Ivy said. “Through eleven schools.”

She took a deep breath.

“Margaret,” she said. “My studio was supposed to be that house.”

I looked up at her.

“What do you mean, sweetheart?”

“I wanted to make somewhere,” she said, “where kids could walk in and not feel like visitors. Where nobody would ask them how long they’re staying. Where they wouldn’t have to pack their stuff back into a duffel bag every night. Somewhere they could just… belong.”

“Do you teach foster children?” I asked.

She nodded.

“Most of them come at a discount,” she said. “Some of them come for free. I work with the county. The caseworkers send them to me.”

“Just like you once needed someone to help you,” I said.

She nodded again.

“Some of them barely speak when they first come in,” she said. “They stand in the back row. They don’t take off their coats. They ask permission for everything. Can I use the bathroom? Can I sit down? Can I have some water?”

She looked at me.

“Like you,” I whispered.

“Like me,” Ivy said.

Then her face changed.

She looked down at the table.

“But I’m struggling, Margaret,” she said quietly.

“With what?”

“Rent,” she said. “Insurance. Equipment. The mirrors are falling off the walls. The sound system is from 2004. One of the windows doesn’t close.” She shook her head. “The discounted classes don’t cover their own costs. Not even close. I’ve been paying for it out of my own savings. And my savings are gone. I’m three months behind on rent.”

I immediately reached for my purse. It was hanging on the back of my chair.

“How much do you need?” I said.

“Margaret, no.”

“Let me help,” I said. “Please. Let me help. Whatever it is.”

“I didn’t come for money,” Ivy said.

“Then what?” I said. “What do you need, sweetheart?”

She took a deep breath.

She looked at me across the old oak table. With her big brown eyes. The ones that used to look like they were waiting to be told to leave.

They didn’t look like that anymore.

“I came for you,” she said.

I froze.

“Me?”

“I need a partner,” Ivy said. “Someone who knows how to teach. Someone who knows how to build a studio from nothing. How to run it. How to keep it alive.” She swallowed. “Someone who knows how to make a scared kid take one step.”

I stared at her.

“Ivy,” I said. “I haven’t taught in eighteen years. I haven’t danced in fifteen. I don’t even play music in this house anymore. What if I can’t do it?”

“What if you fall?” Ivy said softly.

I looked at her.

“You taught me to dance,” she said, “when I was too afraid to take one single step. Remember? Right there.”

She pointed at the floor. At the space between the stove and the counter.

“Right there,” she said. “You held out your hand. And I said, What if I do it wrong? And you said, Then we’ll invent a new dance.”

I couldn’t speak.

“There’s already a room for you,” Ivy added quietly. “At the studio. An office. With a window. I painted it.”

“You prepared a room for me?” I said.

“I hoped you’d say yes,” she said.

She paused.

“I painted it yellow,” she said.

Daniel was looking at me. I could feel him looking at me.

I didn’t look back at him. I couldn’t.

“Perhaps,” Daniel said very gently, “you should go see it, Maggie.”

I looked down at the medals in the wooden box.

The gold one from Las Vegas. The bronze one from when I was nine. Twenty-six years of being brave enough to try.

Then I looked at Ivy.

“I’m not promising anything,” I said.

“That’s okay,” she said quickly.

“But I’d like to visit,” I said. “Tomorrow.”

Her whole face lit up.

“Really?”

“Really,” I said.