Remembering Me by Diane Chamberlain Page B

in his seat to look at Sarah. “Sorry,” he said.
    Sarah looked away from him, swallowing hard to keep her tears in check.
    “Sarah, would you like the part of the stepmother?” the teacher asked. “That part requires a very good actress. I think you’d be good in it.”
    She didn’t know what to say. Of course she wanted the part, but not that way. Not because she was ugly.
    “No, thank you, ma’am,” she said, her cheeks still burning.
    When the play had been fully cast, the class was released for recess. Escape, finally. Instead of joining the other children on the playground, Sarah ran home.
    She knew the house would be empty except for her aunt, and that was fine. Both her parents were at work in the family’s clothing store, but Aunt Jane didn’t work. She never wentanywhere. She was always there for Sarah, and that’s what Sarah was counting on.
    She knew she would find her aunt in her room on the top floor of the house, working on a quilt, as usual. Her quilts graced every bed in the house and many of the neighbors’ houses, as well. The colorful squares of material covered nearly every surface in Aunt Jane’s bedroom, and Sarah always found the sight of them comforting.
    Aunt Jane looked up in surprise when Sarah walked into her room.
    “You startled me,” she said, one hand on her enormous chest. “What on earth are you doing home so early? Are you ill? Are you crying?” Aunt Jane was up and walking toward her. “What’s wrong, precious?”
    Sarah hugged her aunt, drinking in the familiar scent of the flowery soap she used. Aunt Jane was rooted like a tree, a solid, big-boned woman.
    “Sit down on my bed and tell me all about it,” Aunt Jane said, moving some of her squares to make room for her niece.
    Sarah sat down, but she was hesitant to relive the humiliation. Still, this was Aunt Jane, and she knew she was safe with her. If she’d told her mother, her mother would have said she deserved the taunting because she was sloppy about her appearance. It irked her parents no end that they owned Wilding’s, the most exclusive children’s clothing store in town, yet their own daughter looked like a tall, homely beanpole, no matter how carefully they dressed her. “She’s a poor advertisement for the store,” she’d once overheard her father saying. “Nearly as bad as your sister. Good thing Jane never goes out.”
    She told Jane what had happened in her classroom and saw the sympathy in her aunt’s eyes.
    “My poor darling,” Aunt Jane said, moving closer so shecould put her arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “But you know what?” She waited for Sarah to look up at her. “Something good—something wonderful —will come out of this experience. Did you know that?”
    Sarah was mystified. “What?” she asked.
    “You are going to grow up to have a very thick skin,” she said, “and that is an important thing to have.”
    Sarah looked down at her pale, bony wrist. “Thick skin?” she asked.
    Aunt Jane smiled. “It’s an expression. It means that no one will ever be able to hurt you. You won’t be overly sensitive. What you’re going through now is hard, precious, but it’s good training for your future.”
    Aunt Jane called the school then, and Sarah listened as she told the principal what had happened and that Sarah had left early and was staying home for the rest of the day. As she imagined what the principal was saying on the other end of the line, Sarah took comfort in her aunt’s theory that something good would come from this experience, and the image of her taunting classmates gradually grew hazy and indistinct in her mind.
    When Jane got off the phone, she set aside her quilting and played canasta with her niece all afternoon. By dinnertime, Sarah was laughing again.
    It wasn’t until Sarah was a teenager that she realized Aunt Jane was not like other women her age. Other women were married and had children. They went to the market. They shopped for clothes. They