At the cafe a woman sits with her back to me talking to the photographer. He tells her the story of each picture and as he is talking I can imagine what each one is. The bow cutting across the water. The gravestones. The buildings.

My mother is late. I drink more coffee than I should waiting for her. Sam eats cream cheese off of a bagel. He reads a book.

When she gets there she is all aflutter. Bags of canvases and paints. I get her a cup of coffee. I get her rye toast. We work on her homework: lists of things, categories. Lists of how to do things. We go to her house. As she learns how to find her words Sam crawls under the table, around the chairs. By the time we are done he is covered in dog hair.

We drive downtown doing this week's homework. How a fence is different from a wall. How they are the same.

When I pick Abigail up she is holding an invisible baby bird in her hands. She asks us to be quiet so the baby bird can sleep. By the time we get home the baby bird is awake. She lifts her hands out the car door and lets it fly away.