She nodded and kept coloring.
Then she asked, “Is Aunt Brooke still mad at me?”
That question did something every angry phone call had failed to do.
It stripped the whole situation down to its actual size.
The adults in my family were worried about Brooke’s stress.
Brooke’s reputation.
My parents’ embarrassment.
The party.
The guests.
What people might think.
Emma was worried that the adult who frightened her was still angry with her.
I pulled out the chair beside her.
“No, sweetheart. You don’t have to worry about Aunt Brooke being mad.”
“Do I have to tell her sorry?”
“No.”
She looked at me carefully, almost checking whether the answer might change.
“No?”
“No.”
Her shoulders dropped.
I had seen that same little movement hundreds of times when Claire was alive.
Claire used to say children carried tension in places adults forgot to look.
Their shoulders.
