My father returned from studying a summer in Maine with a package. I was nine. It was a small clay figure in four parts: a circular head with a painted smile, a halo, a skirted body with wings, and a bell that chimed. At the top was a leather cord knotted and garnished with bluish grass. 

It was called a People Lover. She came with a booklet telling some tale of her good deeds that I have since forgotten.

I immediately hung the People Lover up in my room.

Years later the leather cord broke and it fell. A piece of her wing cracked apart. My dad repaired it with glue.

The People Lover, despite my living in many places still hangs in my home: a small clay figure in four parts: a circular head with a painted smile, a halo, a skirted body with wings, the seam where it broke still visible, and a bell that chimes. At the top the knotted cord with the bluish grassy garnish is now brown. 

Through the years, after some scrapes and falls she’s sturdy still.