I said, “Tell them what?”

And Evelyn said: “The truth.

That you cannot always tell, that you mind about it very much, and that you would like them to help you.”

So on a Saturday in the January I sat down on a floor with two five-year-olds and said that I sometimes got them mixed up, that it was because I had only known them for four months and not because I did not care, that it made me feel terrible, and that I was asking for their help.

Maya found this the funniest thing that had ever happened.