"So you gave it to Niva."
"Because Niva asked about it," he said. "Three times. And I lied to her three times. And I thought if anybody in this house deserved to have it, it was the one I lied to." He looked at Niva. "And because I thought you'd use it. For Syracuse. I thought at least it would do something good. I thought, if your mother wants to send a message, fine, I'll turn it into something useful." He shook his head. "That's what I thought for about four seconds. And then I'd already done it, and I couldn't take it back without explaining, so I just—kept holding it out."
I looked at Niva.
"And you took it," I said to her.
"Yes," she said.
"Why?"
She was quiet for a long time. Long enough that I heard the refrigerator kick on and hum.
"Two reasons," she said. "One is that Delphine and Mrs. Okafor were sitting right there. And if I said, No, Dad, I bought it, I bought it back from the pawn shop, then everybody would know he'd pawned it. Mrs. Okafor would know. Delphine would know, and Delphine's great but Delphine would tell her mom, and her mom works at the credit union with like half of Utica. And Dad would have to sit there in his own kitchen with everybody knowing." She looked at our father. "I wasn't going to do that to you. Not in front of people."
My father closed his eyes again.
"What's the other reason?" I said.