“That was twenty years ago,” I said.

“And Caleb was the one who pushed me.”

“It was an accident,” she said, her voice rising slightly.

“You were both children.

You cannot hold onto a grudge forever, Mara.”

“It is not a grudge when it keeps happening,” I said.

At eleven, the autumn sun was bright but gave no heat.

We stood beside her ten-year-old Buick in the gravel lot behind the diner, the exhaust from the kitchen fans blowing the smell of fried onions over us.