It would be protected by the decisions I made after the public moment had passed.

PART 5

At home that evening, Grace sat at the dining table assembling a cardboard model of the solar system.

Saturn had rolled under a chair, and she had used far too much glue on Jupiter.

I knelt to retrieve the missing planet while she painted tiny yellow stars around the edges of the box.

“Did you talk to Aunt Rachel?” she asked without looking up.

“Yes.”