“It is normal,” she said.

“People die and plans change.

The ones who stay just have to keep picking each other.”

Then she moved on to the next question, which was about whether her dad had ever driven a tank.

I stood at the back of a fifth-grade classroom and had to work fairly hard for about thirty seconds.

Because a year and four months earlier that same child had been sitting on a laundry room floor next to a running dryer, twisting a ribbon around her fingers, working out whether her existence was something she should apologize for.