Beatatrix struggled more than Callahan those first few months. She was old enough to understand our family had changed, but not old enough to explain everything she felt.

One evening she curled beside me on the sofa at my parents’ house and asked whether the anniversary dinner had somehow been her fault.

“What makes you think that?” I asked.

“Because I served my own plate too,” she whispered. “Did that make Aunt Willamina angrier?”

I held her face gently between my hands. “Nothing that happened that night was about a plate,” I told her. “It was about an adult who needed someone else to feel smaller so she could feel powerful.

That was never your fault. Not for one second.”