The Lightbender asked to meet with Grandpa Ephraim alone. At first, Micah wanted to refuse, but then he realized his grandfather and the Lightbender were about to see each other face-to-face for the first time in years. Maybe that moment would mean more for both of them if Micah didn’t butt in.

He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll stay with Big Jean.”

The elephant snorffled the top of Micah’s head with her trunk, so at least one of them was pleased.

The Lightbender frowned. “Not for long,” he said. “I just need a moment with your grandfather in private, and then I will call you in.”

“Sometimes it’s hard to wake him up.”

“I know,” he said. “Rosebud has given me something that will help.”

“I hope so.” Micah knew it was time for the big warning. “There’s also my aunt.”

“Chintzy mentioned her.” He didn’t look worried, so Micah was sure Chintzy hadn’t mentioned Aunt Gertrudis thoroughly enough. “I’ll make sure she stays out of the way.”

The Lightbender looked to the elephant. “Jean, guard.”

She snapped, as fast as an elephant could snap, to attention and saluted him with her trunk. The Lightbender tugged his leather coat down in the front, which didn’t change how he looked one bit as far as Micah could tell, and then he strode up the path to the front door and let himself in without knocking.

As soon as the Lightbender had disappeared, Big Jean tromped right over to the garden hose on the side of the house and picked it up with her trunk.

“Are you thirsty?” Micah asked. She had walked an awfully long way this morning.

He turned on the hose, thinking he would give her a drink, and soon, he was spraying her all over. She even knelt down on her front legs so that he could get the top of her head. Before he knew it, Micah was wet from his big green velvet coat to his bare toes.

He thought he was doing it all to help her, but when the Lightbender poked his head out the front door and called for Micah to come inside, he realized that he’d lost track of time. Since he had started washing Big Jean, he hadn’t worried about what might be happening in the house.

He patted her trunk. “Thank you.”

She nudged him toward the door.

In the living room, Grandpa Ephraim was lying on the sofa with his eyes open. Micah could hear his lungs, the same blub glub as usual, but he looked better than he had that morning. He was still sick, but he mostly looked tired. And happy.

“Micah,” he said in a voice that was stronger than Micah was expecting. “You’ve grown.”

Micah sat down on the floor beside him and kissed his cheek. “I don’t think I could have,” he said. “I didn’t go to school today.”

His grandfather nodded. “And you’ve grown more than ever.”

For a time they just sat there. Micah held his grandfather’s hand on top of his blanket, and Grandpa Ephraim smiled. The Lightbender stood out of the way in the corner next to the television. Aunt Gertrudis was nowhere to be seen.

“I won’t tell you that you shouldn’t have done it,” Grandpa Ephraim said at last, and Micah guessed that the Lightbender must have told him about his adventure with the gorilla balloon. “Because it was a ridiculous, amazing thing to do, and once in a while, it’s good to be ridiculous and amazing.”

Grandpa Ephraim was always saying things that sounded so important Micah wanted to wrap them up in boxes and keep them forever. He tried to think of an important thing to tell him in return. “I love you,” he said. It was the best he could do.

“And I love you. More than anything. So try to keep your feet on the ground in the future if you can.”

His grip tightened, and Micah squeezed back.

“Thank you for bringing the Man Who Bends Light to my living room. Doesn’t he look wonderfully out of place?”

Micah remembered what his grandfather had said just that morning. “That’s the point of him.”

They both looked at the Lightbender, whose eyebrows lifted in confusion.

“Two of the most wonderful people in my life in the same room,” Grandpa Ephraim said. “I must be the luckiest old man that ever lived.” He motioned to the Lightbender with his free hand, and the Lightbender came to squat beside Micah.

He took the frail wrinkled hand in his own smooth fist and held it gently.

“Now,” murmured Grandpa Ephraim. “Let’s be here together for as long as we have.”

Micah squeezed his hand harder.

“For as long as we have,” he said again. “Then, when the time comes, we’ll all let go.”

None of them said anything else. Micah wiped at his eyes with his free hand a few times, and Grandpa Ephraim’s chest pulled itself up and down more and more slowly. The Lightbender didn’t twitch; he didn’t even blink. He stared at Ephraim Tuttle like all the secrets of the universe were written in the lines on his face, and maybe they were.

But Micah only saw his grandfather. When the blub glub finally stopped, it hurt even more than he had expected.