Mark had filed for divorce two weeks after the Florida trip, once a forensic audit of their joint accounts revealed that the cabana had been the least of it, that Gwen had been stealing from family members for over a year to cover secret credit-card debts and a shopping addiction she had hidden behind her flawless online life.

She had moved into a small rental apartment across town, and she had been, by her own doing, cut off entirely from the family she had spent so long manipulating.

But we did not talk about any of that at the barbecue.

We talked about nothing heavier than hamburgers and the summer ahead, because the day belonged to Maya.

And out on the patio, near the rose bushes, my daughter stood in a sleeveless yellow dress, and she was not hiding.

There were no cardigan sweaters pulled over her arms, no cuffs tugged down over her wrists, none of the thousand small concealments that had defined her childhood.