The Tall Chair

“Why is my chair so tall?” Lily whispers. “It wasn’t tall at bedtime.”

From her bed, the chair by the window looks enormous. Something rises from its back in a long, lumpy shape. Its top leans toward the ceiling, and one side hangs almost to the floor.

Lily hugs her blanket. “Maybe it’s a very tall chair,” she says. “Or maybe it’s a chair wearing a hat.”

The hat does not answer.

Across the room, Rabbit lies near the chair’s front leg. Lily’s stuffed rabbit has one floppy ear and a little green bow. She had carried him everywhere that day, but when she climbed into bed, he slipped from her arms and landed on the rug.

“Rabbit,” Lily whispers. “I need you.”

She sits up. The strange shape seems to stretch across the chair. The room is dark enough that Lily can’t see the rug clearly, and she can’t tell what’s beside Rabbit—or how far away the chair is.

“I could reach down,” she says. She leans toward the edge of the bed, then stops. “But I don’t know what’s on the floor.”

The shape stays still. A stripe of moonlight rests on the wall beside Lily’s bed, where the wallpaper has little blue boats. She knows the wall well. She can find the lamp switch without looking, too. It is right beside her pillow.

Still, the tall shape catches her eye.

“Did you grow while I was brushing my teeth?” she asks the chair.

Nothing moves. The room makes only its usual nighttime sounds: the house settling, the clock ticking, and a car passing far away.

Lily looks from Rabbit to the chair. Then she remembers coming into the room after dinner. Her yellow raincoat had been in her hands. She meant to hang it up, but she had put it over the chair instead.

“Wait,” she says. “My coat isn’t on its hook.”

Lily touches the familiar wall with one hand and finds the lamp switch with the other. “I can check,” she tells herself. “I’ll turn on the lamp and see what’s there.”

Click! Lily turns on the lamp.

The bedroom appears just as she knows it: the bookshelf with picture books, the slippers by the dresser, the blue boats on the wall. And the tall shape is no tall chair at all.

It is her yellow raincoat, draped over the chair. One sleeve sticks straight out. The hood folds over the top like a lopsided cap.

“Oh!” Lily says. “You made the chair look like a giant.”

The chair sits quietly, looking like an ordinary chair again.

Lily slides her feet onto the rug. She keeps one hand against the familiar wall and takes a small step. Then another. In the lamplight, she can see the path to Rabbit. Nothing is hiding beside him. Nothing blocks the way.

“Almost there,” she says.

She reaches down and lifts Rabbit by his middle. His floppy ears fall over her wrist, and his green bow is a little crooked.

“Found you!” Lily says, giving him a quick squeeze. “I wondered where you were.”

Then she looks at the raincoat on the chair. Its sleeve brushes the seat, and the hood still droops over the back.

“You belong on your hook,” Lily tells it. “The chair is for sitting.”

With Rabbit tucked under one arm, Lily picks up the coat. It is heavier than it looks, and one sleeve trails across the floor. She carries it to the low hook on the wall beside the door.

“Here you go,” she says, threading the hood over the hook. The coat hangs straight down, with both sleeves resting at its sides.

Lily steps back to look. The chair is only a chair. The coat is only a coat. The floor is clear, and Rabbit is safe in her arms.

She switches off the lamp for a moment. In the dark, the chair’s outline stays small and familiar. No tall shape leans over it now.

Lily clicks the lamp on again. “That’s better,” she says. “Now I know what everything is.”

Lily carries Rabbit back to bed. This time, she sets him right beside her pillow instead of at the very edge.

“Your spot is here,” she tells him. “Close enough for a goodnight hug.”

Rabbit’s long ears flop across the blanket. Lily smooths one ear flat, then folds it over his little green bow. She tucks the blanket around her legs and checks the room once more.

The bookshelf stands against the wall. The slippers wait by the dresser. The chair sits beneath the window, empty and plain. The raincoat hangs from its hook, where Lily can see its yellow hood.

“Chair,” Lily whispers, “you look much shorter now.”

She gives a tiny giggle. The chair does not mind.

The clock ticks on. A car passes outside, then its sound fades down the street. The bedroom grows quiet again, the same quiet Lily knows from other nights.

Her eyes find the stripe of moonlight on the blue-boat wallpaper. She follows it with her gaze, from one little boat to the next. They seem to be sailing across the wall, though the boats stay perfectly still.

“Good night, boats,” she murmurs.

Then she turns toward Rabbit. “Good night, Rabbit. You can keep watch from right here.”

Rabbit’s stitched face looks cheerful in the lamplight. Lily presses her cheek against his soft ear and listens to the clock tick. She thinks of the coat hanging on its hook and the chair standing where it always stands.

Nothing needs moving now. Nothing needs finding. The room is put back together, piece by piece, and Lily is right where she wants to be.

She reaches for the lamp switch. “Good night, room,” she says.

Click.

The dark returns, but the chair remains an ordinary chair in its familiar place. Lily can picture the coat on its hook and Rabbit beside her pillow. She rests her hand on his green bow as the clock keeps time, tick by tick, through the quiet night.