“You will say he got there at seven and stayed until midnight.”

He looked at me through his thick lenses, waiting for me to nod.

“Why would I do that?” I asked.

“Because he is your brother,” Arthur said.

“That stopped mattering a long time ago,” I said.

“It never stops mattering,” my mother pleaded from the shadow of the pillar.

“Please, Mara.

Just this once.”