The boy opened his hands

"Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning." — Psalm 30:5

The clocks went back last night and I was awake an hour before the children came.

I sat in the kitchen in the extra hour — the hour the government gives back in November, the one it borrowed in March — and the light through the window was different because the clock said six but the sun said seven, and the sun was right, and the coffee was good, and Dan and Beth were asleep upstairs and I had the house to myself in a way I have not had it when someone else was in it, and the having was a gift.

There were ten children in the circle this morning. Olivia was there — Dan brought her down early and she slid into the chair next to Sophie the way she always does when she visits, as if the chair has been waiting for her, which it has. A new girl I do not know yet sat between Thomas and the wall and watched. Ten is two more than the room is comfortable with, but the room has held ten before and the floor is always there for whoever comes last.

The lesson was the loaves and the fishes. I have taught it a hundred times. A boy has five loaves and two fish and a crowd has nothing and Jesus takes what the boy has and feeds everyone, and the miracle is not the multiplication — the miracle is the boy who opened his hands.

Caleb said, "Miss Ruby, was the boy scared?"

I said I thought so. I said I thought anyone who gives away the only thing they have is scared, and the giving is the brave part, not the not-being-scared.

Thomas said, "I would be scared."

Sophie said, "I would give the fish but keep one loaf."

I laughed. The children laughed. The new girl did not laugh but she smiled, and a smile from a child who has not given you her name is worth more than a laugh from a child who has, and I held it the way you hold a loaf you have been given.

The All Saints service was after class and I sat in the pew and the names were read — every name, the whole list, the dead of this congregation and the dead of our hearts — and I said amen after each one. Dan was beside me. Beth was beside him. Jack and Olivia were between them. And when Earl's name was read I felt Dan's hand on my arm, just for a moment, and that was all, and that was enough.

Lord, the boy opened his hands. The morning came. The names were said.