My mother gripped her lace handkerchief with both hands, twisting the fabric until her knuckles went pale.

“Brenda, please,” my mother fluttered, out of breath.

“The neighbors might hear through the open patio doors.”

“Let them hear,” Brenda said, cutting my mother off instantly.

“Valerie brings her son here every Sunday and expects us to walk on eggshells around his little paper projects.”

“It was a drawing of a stone bridge,” Toby said softly from his seat in the window nook.

My father didn’t look up from his plate.