The Day Everything Was Different

The morning light came through Lily's window like a warm golden hug, spilling across her pink quilt and dancing across her eyelids. She had been awake for what felt like hours, though the sun had only just begun to stretch its sleepy arms above the rooftops. Today was not just any Saturday. Today was the day Grandma was coming to stay for a whole entire week, and Lily had been counting down the days on her rainbow-colored calendar for what felt like forever.

She bolted upright in bed, her dark hair sticking up in wild spirals that her mother always called her "sleeping fox" look. The stuffed rabbit named Captain Fluffington, who had been her companion through countless thunderstorms and scary dreams, tumbled to the floor with a soft thump. Lily didn't even notice. She was already sliding out of bed, her bare feet hitting the cool hardwood floor as she rushed to her window.

The garden below was still damp with morning dew, the grass looking like someone had sprinkled it with tiny diamonds. Mrs. Patterson's cat, Mr. Whiskers, was prowling along the fence, his orange fur glowing in the early light. And there, pulling into the driveway with a car packed so full it looked like a traveling circus had moved in, was Grandma's blue station wagon.

"That's it! That's Grandma!" Lily shouted, forgetting that everyone in the house could hear her. She didn't care. She scrambled into her mismatched pajamas—she had put on the shirt with the dancing dinosaurs and the pants with the rocket ships because that was her lucky combination—and she burst out of her bedroom door like a rocket launching into space.

She skidded down the hallway, her socks sliding on the polished floor, and nearly crashed into her father, who was just emerging from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his shoulders and his hair still wet from the shower.

"Whoa there, rocket girl!" he said, catching her by the shoulders before she could zoom past him. "Where are you headed in such a hurry?"

"Daddy, it's Grandma! She's here! I saw her car!" Lily bounced up and down, her words tumbling over each other like excited marbles. "Can I go help her bring things in? Please please please?"

Her father laughed, a deep warm sound that always made Lily feel safe. "Of course you can. But first—" He held up a finger. "—you need to make yourself presentable. You can't greet Grandma in your pajamas. Well, I suppose you could, but I think she'd rather see her favorite granddaughter looking like a proper young lady."

Lily was already looking down at her dinosaur and rocket pajamas. "But these ARE proper," she insisted. "Dinosaurs and rockets are very proper. They're historical and scientific."

Her father raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? Did you learn that from your teacher, Miss Patterson?"

"No, I made it up just now," Lily admitted with a grin. "But it's still true."

"Alright, you little philosopher. Go get dressed, and I'll make sure Grandma doesn't eat all the blueberry muffins before you get down there."

Lily didn't need to be told twice. She darted back into her room and stood before her open closet, her eyes scanning the colorful array of shirts and dresses and pants that filled the small space. This was going to be the most important outfit selection of her entire eight years of life. Well, maybe not her entire life, but definitely the most important so far this year. Grandma had come to visit before, of course, but never for a whole week. A whole week meant seven whole days of Grandma, and Lily intended to make every single one of them perfect.

She pulled out a yellow sundress with little white flowers around the hem. Too summery. What if it was cold? She put it back. Next she grabbed her purple shirt with the glittery butterfly on the front. Too fancy? Maybe too ordinary? She held it up, then put it back. Then she found her green sweater with the hedgehog on the front—the one Grandma had given her for her birthday last year—and her eyes lit up. That was the one. Grandma would recognize it, and they would have a special moment about how it was her gift.

She changed quickly, then examined herself in the mirror. The hedgehog looked very cozy, and so did Lily. Her hair was still a disaster, but she couldn't do anything about that without her mother, and her mother was probably downstairs doing important grown-up things. She could comb it herself, but combing her hair was like trying to brush a particularly stubborn garden hedge into submission. It never did exactly what she wanted.

The sound of voices drifted up from downstairs—her mother's calm tone, her father's joking reply, and then another voice, warm and familiar as a favorite bedtime story, making Lily's heart skip with joy. Grandma. She was really here. Lily took one last look at herself in the mirror, smoothed down the hedgehog on her sweater, and then she was running again, taking the stairs three at a time, nearly tripping over the last step but catching herself on the banister just in time.

And there, standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, surrounded by what looked like half of a department store, was Grandma.

She was smaller than Lily remembered, but that couldn't be right because people didn't get smaller. Maybe Lily had just grown. Yes, that was it. She had grown, and now Grandma seemed more like someone you could wrap your arms around instead of someone who was simply tall. Her gray hair was pulled back in its usual bun, and she was wearing her blue cardigan with the buttons shaped like little cats—Lily had counted them once and there were seven cats on that cardigan, though one had fallen off and Grandma had sewn it back on three times. Her face was a map of smile lines, the kind that only appeared on people who had spent a lifetime finding things funny.

"Grandma!" Lily shrieked, and she launched herself across the room like a human cannonball.

Grandma opened her arms just in time to catch her, and they spun around together in a wobbly hug that sent a stack of newspapers flying off the table. "There's my sunshine girl!" Grandma exclaimed, her voice crackly and warm, like listening to a favorite song on an old radio. "Look at you! You've grown at least a foot since I saw you at Christmas!"

"I have not," Lily said into Grandma's cardigan, breathing in the familiar scent of lavender and something else she could never quite name, something that just smelled like Grandma.

"You have too. You'll be taller than me before you know it," Grandma said, and even though she was smiling, Lily thought she heard something funny in her voice, something almost sad. But then Grandma was squeezing her again, and the moment passed.

"So what did you bring me?" Lily asked, because the mountain of bags and boxes behind Grandma was too exciting to ignore.

"Patience, patience," Grandma said, tapping Lily on the nose with a finger that smelled like hand cream. "First, let's get these things sorted out. Your mother has been trying to organize everything, but I keep telling her I know exactly where everything is, and she keeps telling me we need a system."

Lily looked toward the kitchen doorway, where she could see her mother arranging something on the counter. Mom looked nice, wearing her favorite blue blouse and her hair pulled back in a neat ponytail. But there was a line between her eyebrows that Lily had learned to recognize. It meant Mom was thinking hard about something, and usually when Mom thought hard, it meant she was about to say something that started with "Now, Mom, I really think..."

"Lily, sweetie, come help me decide where everything should go," Mom called from the kitchen.

But before Lily could move, Grandma was already gathering up some of the bags. "No need to worry about all that, dear. I've got it under control. I've been packing for grandchildren visits for forty years now. I know exactly where everything goes."

"I'm sure you do, Mom," Mom said, and her voice was patient and loving, the way Lily'