“Is Daddy mad because we ate chicken?” she whispered.
My heart cracked.
“No, sweetheart,” I said. “Daddy is mad because grown-up feelings can get messy. That is not your fault.”
She looked at me.
“Are grown-ups supposed to say sorry?”
“Yes.”
“Do they?”
I looked at Elowen.
She looked back at me.
“Sometimes,” I said. “And when they don’t, other grown-ups have to keep kids safe anyway.”
Wren seemed to think about that.
Then she picked up a biscuit.
“Mr. Giddy’s bread is too hard.”
Mr. Gideon pointed at her with his fork.
“That is because your generation has weak jaws.”
She laughed.
And just like that, the room breathed again.
By autumn, the question everyone wanted to ask finally arrived.
It came from my mother, of course.
She called me on a Wednesday evening.
I answered because she had been trying.
Not perfectly.
Not even consistently.
But trying.
