“Who told you that, Lily?”

“Daddy said it,” she said.

Her voice didn’t rise or fall.

She was reciting words she’d heard over and over until she knew them by heart.

“He said you got on the green bus because you didn’t want to live in our house.”

“Daddy got that wrong,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as a logistics manifest.

“I went to do my job, and then I came straight home to take care of you.”

“He said you wanted the other soldiers instead of me,” she said.