My granddaughter called me from the hospital at 3:17 in the morning, and before I even reached the ER, I already knew this was the night everything in our family would finally come into the open.

She sat in the chair opposite mine, balanced a cereal bowl on her knee, and looked out at the garden, which at that point in the year was doing what spring gardens do in Charleston—trying several things at once, some of them incorrect.

“You need to deadhead those,” she said, pointing at the roses along the fence.

I followed her gaze. She was right.

“I know.”

“I can do it if you want. Ms. Okafor said I need service hours for National Honor Society.”

“Deadheading my roses does not qualify as community service.”

“It’s a service,” she said. “And you’re a community.”

I looked at her. She looked back at me with the same perfectly composed expression she had been deploying since she was four, fully aware that she had just said something true enough to embarrass both of us if named directly.

“Fine,” I said. “Log your hours.”

She grinned and went back to her cereal.