Chapter 4 - Paper Crowns, Warm Hands
Rae finishes her early shift and knocks at my door just after noon. I leave it open a finger-width and step back.
“Lunch?” she asks, holding a paper bag. “Then I want to show you something.”
“Yes.”
We eat simple, bread, butter, two small peaches. She puts the pits in a cup for the compost bin downstairs. The bell-key sits on the table. She looks at it, then at me.
“You still thinking about the bell-keeper notice?” she asks.
“I took a tab,” I say. “I don’t know the right way yet.”
“Learning is the right way,” she says. “Come to my place after. We can make a plan.”
We walk three blocks to her building. It’s old brick, three floors, a small courtyard with a fig tree in a tub. Her neighbor waves from the laundry line. The halls smell like clean cotton.
Rae’s apartment is one big room. Bed by the window, small table, two chairs, a shelf of bowls, a kettle, a plant with a crooked stake. A corkboard near the kitchen holds a few cards: **Whisper Mill schedule**, **rent due**, **Mara-call Sunday**, and a copied list of the rules we all live by now: **Count to four. Ask first. One ring only.**
Rae sets a cardboard box on the table. “I save old receipts and wristbands from the loud years,” she says. “I fold them into crowns for the kids at the Listening Rooms. They wear them at graduations and on hard days. Want to help?”
“Yes.”
She washes her hands. I do the same. We sit with the box between us. She shows me how to fold: crease, tuck, press the seam flat with a thumb. She has a small stapler for the final join. The paper is glossy on one side and soft on the other, printed with the names of places that used to take more than they gave.
“What if the names bother you?” I ask.
“We turn them inward,” she says. “Kid sees color, not a brand.”
We fold in quiet for a few minutes. The kettle clicks as if it knows our pace and then settles. She pours tea without story. We keep folding.
“Tell me when you first started doing this,” I say.
“After the first year of the new rules,” she says. “A boy cried at the Mill because he missed trophies. He said the silence made him feel like no one saw him. We made a crown out of whatever we had. He stood taller. We kept going.”
“It’s good work,” I say.
“It’s small work,” she says. “That’s why it stays done.”
A stapler jam interrupts us. The staple bends wrong. My fingers want to solve it fast. I feel the old heat in my hands, the kind that turns small problems into big shows. I put the stapler down. I press the groove of the coin with my thumb and count: one, two, three, four.
Rae brings a butter knife from the drawer. “Let me,” she says. She slips the tip under the bent piece, lifts, clears it. “Try now.”
I squeeze the stapler. It clicks clean. The crown holds. We set it with the others.
“Good rep,” she says, smiling.
We make three more. My folds get smoother. The table fills with a neat line of paper circles. Some are pale blue. Some are gold. One is a mess of old barcodes. Rae laughs when she sees it and says a kid will call it “robot crown.”
“Can I ask you something?” she says, after a minute.
“Yes.”
“When you gave me ‘Jon,’ did it feel like a lie or a bandage?”
“A bandage,” I say. “I wanted to be easy.”
“You don’t owe me easy,” she says. “You owe me honest. Easy comes later, if it wants.”
I nod. We keep folding.
A knock at her door. Rae checks the peephole and opens. An older woman stands there with a leaking plant pot in her hands. “Sorry,” the woman says. “I flooded the hallway again.”
“It’s okay, Mrs. Karasu,” Rae says. “Bring it in.”
We set the plant in the sink. Soil clumps in the drain. Water pools around the rim. I reach for the faucet, then stop myself.
“May I?” I ask Rae.
“Please,” she says.
I loosen the ring under the sink and free the strainer. I scrape the soil into a bowl and rinse the metal. The water runs clear. I slide the strainer back and tighten the ring. No magic. Just work.
“Thank you,” Mrs. Karasu says. “My hands shake.”
“They can shake,” Rae says. “Bring the plant anytime.”
She leaves. We wipe the counter. I feel my shoulders loosen.
“You wanted to fix it with a thought,” Rae says.
“I did,” I say.
“And you didn’t.”
“I didn’t.”
“Good rep,” she says again, lighter this time.
We sit back down. I make a crown from a strip that used to be a wristband for a place with a lot of strobes. I turn the brand inward. The outside shows a soft yellow field. I staple it and set it on my head without thinking.
Rae laughs. “It suits you.”
“It’s light,” I say.
“That’s the point,” she says. “Sit. I’ll make a second one.”
She folds fast. She sets a crown on her own head. We face each other across the table, two adults wearing paper. No one claps. No one takes a picture. It still counts.
“What was your throne before?” she asks.
“Any room I could control,” I say. “Any sky that would answer too fast.”
“And now?”
“This chair,” I say. “This table. This pace.”
Rae’s face softens. “Keep that answer,” she says.
We finish the stack. She writes small names on card tags for the kids who already signed up for crowns. *Aya. Marco. Leena. Jo.* We pack the crowns into the box with tissue. She adds two blank tags for the right-now names that always show up last minute.
The kettle clicks again. She pours hot water over new tea. We drink. The room is warm and plain. I could live here without changing it. That thought surprises me and doesn’t scare me.
“Can I see your note?” Rae asks.
“It’s back at my place,” I say. “I can write a copy.”
She hands me a pencil and a spare index card. I write what I remember:
**Count to four before speaking. Don’t buy awe. Hold the room steady. Try again. Don’t buy yourself back. If the sound comes late, let it. Small truth beats big noise.**
Rae reads. She nods. “Add one,” she says. “**Wear light crowns.**”
I write it. We set the card on her corkboard with a pin.
A small tremor runs through the building lights and stops. Not a cut, just a wiggle. Rae glances up and then away.
“Grid’s jumpy lately,” she says. “Old lines. New meters. It’s fine.”
“Do you worry?” I ask.
“I call if it gets worse,” she says. “We don’t live alone.”
She ties a string around the crown box. I carry it. We take the stairs down to the street and walk it to the Whisper Mill for the evening session. The volunteer at the door smiles when she sees the box.
“Oh, good,” the volunteer says. “We have three birthdays and a bravery badge night.”
Rae signs the sheet. “Put two extra aside,” she says. “For whoever needs ‘today’ to feel like something.”
We leave the box on the side table. The room smells like tea and dusted wood. The leader nods to us and keeps talking with a man about seating. We back out to the street again. The air is mild.
“Back to mine?” I ask.
“Ten minutes,” she says. “I have to give my neighbor her mail.”
I walk to my building alone. I leave the door a finger-width open. I set the bell-key in its place and my coin by it. I write one more line on my own card:
**Ask before fixing.**
I sit and breathe four in, hold two, four out. My body feels used in the right way, hands, shoulders, back. No ache from lifting the sky. A good tired.
A knock. Rae steps in with a small paper bag. “Found ginger,” she says. “For tea.”
We slice the ginger and simmer it in a pot. The room fills with clean heat. She rubs her hands and holds them over the steam.
“You ever think about telling your sister she can be loud in rooms that want it?” I ask.
“I tell her every time,” she says. “She says quiet feels like I’m leaving her. I’m working on learning how to stay without shouting.” Rae looks at the bell-key. “You learning how to stay without thunder?”
“I am,” I say.
“Good,” she says. “That’s the same work.”
We drink the ginger tea. It’s sharp and warm. We don’t say much. I listen to the small things: the spoon on the cup, the hiss when I set the pot back, a neighbor walking past in the hall. The four-note pattern shows up in the clink of ceramic, late and soft.
Rae stands. “I should go,” she says. “Early shift again. Bring your note to the Mill tomorrow if you want. They like to add good lines.”
“I will,” I say.
She steps to the door and looks at the finger-width gap. “Keep leaving that open,” she says. “It suits you.”
“It suits the room,” I say.
She smiles. “Right.”
“Rae?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you for the crowns.”
“Thank you for the wheel,” she says. “See you tomorrow.”
She goes. I wash the two cups, dry them, and set them upside down on the towel. I tidy the table. I leave the card where I can see it.
I try the new line out loud, soft: “Wear light crowns.” It sits right.
I brush my teeth, turn off the lamp, and lie down. The day stays simple in my head. Fold. Staple. Oil. Ask. Count. I can build a life out of those verbs.
The last thing I hear before I sleep is a distant bus stop announcement, spoken in a calm voice and followed by a quiet chime, four notes, the same as always. I let it land. I let it fade. I rest.