And she’s allowed to be happy anyway.”

We sat on the attic floor until the late light angled through the little window.

She told me stories of my father I’d never heard, including the time he got lost driving to our first home and refused to admit it for twenty miles.

Then she stood, brushed dust from her knees, and declared that we needed to rescue the birthday cake before Denise cut slices the size of paving stones.

I followed her downstairs, thinking about how easy it would have been to mistake the dinner-party confrontation for the end of our story.