“And it worked. It’s the only thing anybody in this family did that night that worked, and it also put you on a billboard, and you were seventeen and you never got to say anything about it, and I have never said one word about it in two years, to you or to anybody, because I say it’s okay and then I go somewhere and I have the feeling by myself.

“So I’m not saying it. That’s all. That’s the whole thing. I’m not saying it about the rice.”

Lily crossed the kitchen and put her forehead against his shoulder, which she had not done since she was about twelve, and stood there.

“I’d have wanted you to take it,” she said, into his shirt.

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” she agreed. “I don’t. Neither do you. That’s the annoying part.” She stepped back and wiped her face with the back of her wrist. “But you’re the one who was in the room, Dad.