A library where Maggie pulled fourteen books from the shelves and announced she needed all of them.
They spent an entire afternoon decorating a cardboard dollhouse that cost less than the dinner Claire used to order without thinking after late meetings.
She enjoyed the cardboard house more.
Claire tried buying Maggie gifts at first.
Books.
Clothes.
A new stuffed animal.
Craft kits.
One Sunday, Ethan stopped her on the porch.
“You don’t have to keep buying things.”
“I know.”
“I mean it.”
Claire looked at the bags.
“I may be overdoing it.”
“A little.”
“I’m new at this.”
Ethan smiled.
“I know.”
She set the bags down.
“What am I supposed to do instead?”
“Just be here.”
The answer irritated her.
Not because it was wrong.
Because it was simple.
Claire had spent her entire adult life solving problems with resources.
If something needed improvement, she funded it.
If a team was struggling, she added staff.
If a room felt empty, she bought furniture.
“Just be here” required something she could not order, delegate, or optimize.
Time.
Attention.
Presence.
So she stopped arriving with bags.
She started arriving with nothing but herself.
Maggie never seemed to notice the difference.
One evening Ethan picked Maggie up from Claire’s condo after a baking disaster involving too much frosting.
Maggie fell asleep in the car before they left the parking garage.
Ethan came back upstairs because Claire had forgotten to return Mr. Buttons.
She handed him the bear.
He looked at the frosting smeared across her kitchen.
“You know you can say no to her.”
“I did.”
“When?”
“She wanted purple frosting too.”
