And now I had a recording made before those conversations showing that the same explanation had already been discussed at the party.
It was not three worried relatives independently remembering an event differently.
It was a story.
And my five-year-old daughter was the inconvenient part they needed the story to cover.
Emma was still sitting at the kitchen table when I walked back in.
Her yellow crayon lay on the floor where she had dropped it during my father’s call.
She had switched to blue.
She was coloring a crooked little house with two windows, a giant front door and flowers almost as tall as the roof.
I picked up the yellow crayon and set it beside her.
She looked up.
“Was Grandpa mad?”
“No.”
It was the easiest answer I could give her without lying about something she was too young to carry.
“He was talking about grown-up stuff.”
