Dorothy saw it, a river as blue as the sea in her picture books at home. The Kansas River was called yellow, and Dorothy saw the two currents, yellow and blue mixing like colors in her paint box.

"Is it green there?" she asked. She meant where the blue and yellow mixed.

"It's green everywhere here," Etta answered. They went back to sit on the bench. Etta told Dorothy about Indian names, Wichita and Topeka. Topeka meant "A Good Place to Find Potatoes." That made Dorothy laugh.

"But any place is what you make it," said Etta. "You've got to make it home. You've got to do that for yourself. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Dorothy began to play with the bows on Etta's dress. Etta put her arms around her and rested her head against Dorothy's. They were nearly the same height.

"It's difficult, because everybody wants to be loved. And you think you can't have a home unless you are loved by somebody, anybody. But it's not true. Sometimes you can learn to live without being loved. It's terrible hard, but you can do it."

Then she kissed Dorothy on the forehead.

"The trick is," said Etta, pulling Dorothy's long black hair from her face, "to remember what it's like to be loved."

Dorothy fell asleep. She dreamed of knitting and the black piano and her paint box and picture books and all the things that had been left behind.

"Dorothy. Dorothy, darling, wake up." Someone was speaking. Dorothy opened her eyes to see a woman's face. Her skin was brown; the lips looked bruised; the flesh around the eyes was dark. "Hello, Dorothy. I'm your Aunty Em."

Toto gave one fierce bark of alarm and wriggled his way back onto Dorothy's lap. Dorothy was confused and rubbed her eyes.