“Are you the lady who owns the castle?”
Lenora knelt. “I help take care of it.”
“My mama says you let us have my party here.”
“I’m glad you came.”
Amara studied her. “Were you a princess?”
Lenora laughed softly. “No.”
“A queen?”
“No.”
“Then why do you have a castle?”
Lenora looked around the ballroom: the chandeliers, the flowers, the tables filled with cupcakes and paper plates, the children laughing beneath portraits of ancestors who had probably never imagined this.
“Because somebody in my family built a very big house,” Lenora said. “And now I think it should belong to more people.”
Amara considered this, then nodded like it made perfect sense.
“My mama says you’re kind.”
Lenora’s throat tightened.
“Your mama is kind too.”
Amara leaned closer and whispered, “She cries sometimes but she’s still brave.”
Lenora blinked back tears.
“Yes,” she said. “That happens a lot.”
