“They came to say goodbye,” she sneered, “to a man who was never their family.”

Chapter 5 — He Was Our Grandfather

That was the moment my daughter Clara stepped forward on her own.

I had rehearsed nothing with my children.

I had not coached a single line, had not told any of them to confront Felicia or Garrett or anyone else; I had told them only that we were going to say goodbye to their grandfather, and to stand tall, and to let me do the talking.

But Clara — who was small, and clear-eyed, and had my mother’s stubborn sense of what was true — stepped out from my side, and she looked past Felicia to the flower-covered grave where Theodore lay, and she said it, in a voice pitched to carry to every person standing near us.