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huge home was alive with the aroma of colorful caches of dried flowers and herbs and eucalyptus<br />
leaves. The sweet scent of vanilla or peach or peppermint or lavender or roses drifted up from small<br />
sweetgrass baskets sitting upon antique night tables. They wafted down from small cherry wood<br />
shelving filled with scented candles of all shapes and sizes. Each of the three bathrooms in her home<br />
had silver trays containing mounds of multi-colored soaps that were a bouquet to the senses.<br />
Toni loved the smell of lavender that came out of Jordan’s room as she eased the door open. Miz<br />
Tweeney stood behind her, her arms folded.<br />
Her brown angel was fast asleep. Her eyes grew soft at her resting son. No one could look at him<br />
and tell that he was different. Asleep, he was like any other child. Miz Tweeney nudged Toni and<br />
gestured towards a foot locker at the foot of Jordan’s twin bed, made of natural pine. There was a<br />
stack of drawing paper on top. Toni pulled a few and was immediately impressed by the quality of the<br />
first two. One was a drawing of a house surrounded by an array of colorful flowers and the other was<br />
of a large white double-rigged shrimping trawler, with its engine room at the front and trawls on each<br />
side, each supporting wide butterfly style shrimping nets.<br />
Toni nodded. These are good, she thought. Very good. Especially the detail. She turned towards<br />
Miz Tweeney and smiled.<br />
“These are nice! Where are the ones Jordan drew?” She whispered.<br />
“You’re holding them, baby!” Miz Tweeney nodded towards the drawing in her hands.<br />
“What!” Her gaze fell to the drawings in her hands. Miz Tweeney nodded towards the other<br />
drawings.<br />
Toni picked up the other drawings and gasped audibly. Their color and detail were equal to the<br />
first two.<br />
“Oh, my God! Jordan did these?”<br />
“Yes, baby. He drew them all. Are you sure this school isn’t giving art lessons to Jordan?”<br />
Toni could only shake her head. She couldn’t take her eyes off of the last two drawings, especially<br />
the one with the woman standing in the water, gazing into the horizon, with three white loons flying in<br />
a row in the distance. And the other, showing the Sampit River Bridge, with Georgetown’s<br />
Harborwalk and its row of shrimpers moored at the docks. Her body shook. Miz Tweeney placed her<br />
hands on Toni’s shoulders and squeezed them gently. The tiny bed creaked behind them. They both<br />
turned and saw Jordan’s wide-eyes trained on them. His brown face broke into a huge grin at the sight<br />
of his mother.<br />
“Mommy! Ich bin hungrig! Wen wir gessen sind?” he said in flawless German.
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