My mother lifted her head.
"I didn't tell her to," my mother said. "I never told her to do it. I said a thing, a thing you say, I was upset, people say things. I never in my life told her —"
"You didn't tell her not to," Marcus said. "You sat there."
"Don't you dare make this about me, Marcus. Don't you stand there in this kitchen —"
"I'm sitting."
"— and make this about me when she's the one who went and got the shears out of my basket —"
"She's fifteen," Marcus said. "You're thirty-five."
My mother made a sound, not a word. Then she uncrossed her arms and walked past me through the doorway, close enough that her sleeve brushed mine, and out through the living room and out the front door, and we heard the screen door bang behind her and her footsteps going down the slope of the porch and then nothing. She didn't take the car.
Marcus sat at the table and looked at his hands.
"Is it true?" I said. "Did she say it?"
He didn't answer right away. Then he nodded.