I did not want her back, or her secret, or her cooperation on bath day.

I just liked her — liked her sharpness and her pride and the fierce intelligence she used like armor — and I think she could tell that I wanted nothing from her, and that, it turned out, was the one thing that could reach her.

Everyone else at Oakridge approached Edith as a problem to be solved: the woman who wouldn’t bathe.

I approached her as a person I enjoyed.