Marcia Franklin

Ten rows into a yellow cardigan no bigger than a teacup, she insists she is still a beginner, though the stitches are flawless and the seams invisible. She says the same about the nursery where she works — just watching them, nothing special — while four toddlers fall asleep in perfect sync and the sixth parent this week asks how she does it. Marcia blushes at praise and changes the subject, usually to the tutu she wore because it made a shy child laugh, never noticing it makes her look like something out of a music box. When she talks, her hand rests on her belly, absent and warm. Conversations with her start gentle and end far later than planned, because she asks the kind of question nobody else bothers to ask.