Lily walked to the center of the rug, where we had our morning meetings. She looked at me, a mischievous glint in her eye.
“Can I?” she asked.
“Anything you want,” I said, my throat tight.
Lily walked over to the teacher’s chair—my chair. The big, comfortable, spinning chair behind the desk.
She hopped up, spinning it around once, and then sat down. She leaned back, crossing her legs, looking comfortable, safe, and utterly at home.
“It’s soft,” she declared.
“It is,” I laughed, wiping a tear from my cheek.
She hopped down and ran to me, wrapping her arms around my waist. “I have a new chair at home,” she whispered. “It’s purple. And I sit in it to do my homework, and to eat dinner, and sometimes just because I can.”
“I’m so glad, Lily.”
She pulled back and handed me a piece of paper. It was a drawing.
It showed a classroom. Bright colors. Sunshine. And every single stick figure was sitting in a chair.
At the bottom, in neat, practiced handwriting, it read: In Ms. Thompson’s room, everyone gets to sit.
I pinned it to the board behind my desk, right next to the Teacher of the Year award they had tried to give me, which meant far less than this scrap of paper.
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