My sister’s eyes snapped toward Miriam.
Then back toward Josie.
Then toward me.
Miriam laughed.
Too fast.
Too high.
“She’s exaggerating,” she said. “Kids say things like that when they don’t want to share attention. It’s normal.”
I looked at my daughter.
Her chin was trembling.
But her eyes weren’t moving.
She wasn’t inventing a story on the spot.
She was reciting something she’d clearly said inside her own head many times before.
Working up the courage to finally say it out loud.
“Josie,” I said, keeping my voice as steady as I could manage. “Can you show me your arm?”
Miriam’s laugh cut off entirely.
Josie rolled up her sleeve without hesitation.
Like she’d been waiting for someone to finally ask.
A faint yellow-green bruise sat just above her wrist.
Darker a few days earlier, by the color of it.
The kind a four-year-old couldn’t easily explain away on her own.
I don’t remember exactly what I said next.
I remember standing up.
I remember my sister moving instinctively toward Josie’s chair.
Pulling her gently into her lap.
I remember my mother’s hand pressed flat against her own chest.
Like she was trying to physically hold something in.
Miriam started talking fast.
The way people talk when they’re building an explanation in real time.
Instead of recalling one.
“She fell off the swing set on Tuesday. I told you about that. Don’t you remember?”
I didn’t remember that conversation.
I asked her to repeat it.
She couldn’t.
