"No," her father said.
"I know it's not."
"I know you know." He picked up the cup and didn't drink. "She asked me not to. Last night. She put herself in front of you. Did you see that?"
"I saw."
"After what you gave her for dinner. She did that."
Theresa set her cup down because her hands had finally started to shake.
***
Josie woke to the smell of eggs.
For a moment she didn't remember, and then she did, all at once, the way you remember a test you didn't study for. Benji was still asleep with his face mashed into the pillow and his foot on her leg. She slid out from under it. She was still in the yellow sweater. She went down the hall in her socks.
Her mother was at the stove, in her robe, with a spatula. Grandpa Walt was on the stool by the counter with a cup of coffee. Nobody was talking. On the dining table four plates were set, the white ones with the blue line, and four forks, and four glasses, but no napkins.
Her mother turned around.
Josie saw her face. The left side, the purple along the bone. She stopped in the doorway. She didn't mean to stop. She stood there and waited, the way she always waited, to be told to come in.
Her mother looked at her for a long moment. Josie couldn't read what was in it. It wasn't the door swinging shut. It wasn't anything opening either. It was something stuck halfway, like a drawer that's come off its track.
"Sit down," her mother said. "It's ready."
Josie sat. Grandpa Walt didn't get up from the stool. He didn't come to the table at all. He sat in the kitchen with his coffee and watched, and when Josie glanced at him he looked down into the cup.