“Are you getting enough to eat at home?”

She said her words very deliberately, spacing them out in the cold air.

“We eat fine, Grandpa.”

She looked around the empty park again.

The wind blew another brown oak leaf onto the wooden table between us.

Emma reached out and closed her small hand around the fabric of my coat sleeve.

She leaned in closer to my side.

“Grandpa, please stop giving Dad money,” she whispered.