There is a birthday party in this story. It’s Phoebe’s thirteenth, at the ranch, and it is not like the sixth one.

There are eleven kids and no live music and no fireworks, because she asked for none of it. Grant is there and he asks before he does things now, four times out of five, which at fifty-six is a genuine achievement.

Ronald wears whatever she puts on his head. Arthur came and stood slightly apart and Phoebe brought him a plate, unprompted, and did not say anything about it, and I went and stood in the kitchen for a minute.

She did not tell me her wish this year. She said, “It’s private,” and I said okay, and that was the whole exchange, and it was better than the year she told me.

I used to say that justice doesn’t repair what was broken — that it only clears the wreckage so you can walk into the future without carrying anyone else’s lies.

I liked that sentence for seven years. I said it on a terrace with fireworks going off and I have said it to a journalist.