The second buzz was the Lakeview Parents Connect group, a Facebook page Carly had added me to years ago that I never looked at. Somebody from the PTA had posted footage of the ceremony, the whole thing from Mr. Bergquist's introduction to the end, under the caption Thank you Mrs. Fjelstad for 36 amazing years!! There were already a hundred and forty comments. Most of them were about Mrs. Fjelstad. People posting pictures of their own stars, faded ribbons, the little brass points gone dull. I had her in 2003, I still have mine. I had her in 1994 and I cried my eyes out watching this. But some of them weren't. Who was the second star for??? one said. And under it, from somebody whose name I didn't recognize: That was the lighthouse girl's mom. And under that: Wasn't she the one at the kindergarten table who wouldn't give the lighthouse girl a cupcake? I was standing right there. And under that, a string of replies, some of them defending Carly, some of them not, and somebody saying this isn't the place, and somebody else saying then where is the place, and somebody posting the line from Elsie's story, you don't have to see a light for it to work, with a broken-heart emoji.
I didn't show Carly. I didn't have to. When I went back inside she was sitting at the kitchen table with her own phone face down in front of her and the yellowed envelope beside it, and she looked up at me, and I knew she'd seen it.
"Dagny called," she said. Her sister. "She saw it. Somebody she knows from the rink sent it to her." She laughed, a horrible little laugh. "She said, wow, I didn't know you had a story about Mom. She said, is it about me? Like that's — like that's the part that matters."
"Carly."
"I'm the PTA hospitality chair. I'm supposed to do the teacher appreciation lunch on Monday. I'm supposed to stand there and hand that woman a gift card."
"Then don't."
"Then everybody will know why."
"Everybody already knows why," I said. I sat down across from her. "I'm going to take Elsie out for a while. Just her and me. Is that all right?"
Carly looked at me. I watched her decide not to fight about it. "Finn's going to want to go."