MY SEVEN-YEAR-OLD GRANDDAUGHTER CLUTCHED MY HAND AND WHISPERED, “GRANDPA… MOM PUTS SOMETHING IN MY JUICE.” I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A CHILD’S FEAR—UNTIL A MEMPHIS DOCTOR READ HER TESTS, FROZE, AND WENT SILENT FOR FOUR LONG SECONDS.

She was thinner. Less arranged. Hair in a loose ponytail, no makeup I could see. For a second I thought about turning my cart and leaving.

Instead, I stayed where I was.

She saw me.

Stopped.

There are a hundred speeches people imagine delivering in moments like that. I had rehearsed none of them, but anger keeps old files.

She approached slowly.

“Earl,” she said.

I looked at her.

“I’m not here to fight,” she added.

“That makes one of us.”

She flinched.

Good.

“I know you hate me,” she said.

“Hate is too active,” I told her. “I don’t trust you. That’s different.”

Her eyes filled, but I had long ago stopped measuring sincerity by moisture.

“I loved her,” she said.

I leaned one hand on the shopping cart.

“Then you should have acted like it.”

That was all.

I pushed my cart away and left her standing beside the apples.

When I told Daniel later, he sighed.

“You okay?”

“Yes.”

“Did she say anything useful?”

“No.”

He nodded. “That sounds right.”

One summer evening, about sixteen months after the day at the clinic, Ruby and I sat on the back porch of Daniel’s rental house watching fireflies in the yard.

She was eight now.