Beside me, I could feel Caleb watching too, very still, in the particular way he had gone still all morning, and Chloe sat between us in her gold dress with her hands folded neatly in her lap, waiting her turn like the polite, hopeful child she was, not yet knowing that in this house, her turn was never quite the same as everyone else’s.

I had watched this exact choreography play out at every gift-giving occasion for three years, and it never got easier to sit through.

The other children were called forward by name, warmly, their gifts presented with flourish, their reactions savored.

And then, always, would come the small deliberate cooling when it was Chloe’s turn, a shift so subtle that anyone who was not watching for it might miss it entirely, but that a child feels in her whole body.

The slightly flatter voice.