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“I heard that.”

“I didn’t say it,” Emma says as she wipes her mouth.

“You didn’t have to.”

Biddy ignores us and taps near Celeste’s face. “Did she help kids too?”

“She did.” I rescue the photograph before syrup reaches it. “Sometimes families needed clothes or help finding somewhere to live, and your mom helped however she could.”

Biddy looks at Celeste again before picking up her fork. “Mommy was nice.”

“Yeah.” I brush one of her curls away from her cheek. “She really was.”

“Yeah.”

The girls keep eating under Mom’s watchful eye, which usually means I’m about to regret letting her participate in the conversation.

“Your mother once made your father drive an injured pigeon across town,” she tells them.

Babs freezes with her cup halfway to her mouth. “A pigeon?”

“It had a hurt wing.” Mom takes another drink of coffee, because apparently humiliating me before nine in the morning requires refreshments. “Your father complained the whole drive and called it an inconvenience with wings.”

Emma laughs beside me, and Babs joins her so hard she has to put down her cup.

“I still drove it where Celeste wanted it to go,” I remind them.

Biddy stares at me with a frown deep enough to crease her forehead. “Daddy, it was hurt.”

“I know. That’s why the pigeon got a twenty-minute ride across town despite being a terrible passenger.”

“You were mean to him.”

I take a drink of coffee and Mom’s smile widens across the table. “He couldn’t understand me.”

Emma leans back with one hand over her stomach. “I’m sure that made the pigeon feel much better.”

By the time I convince the girls to finish eating, the conversation has moved from Celeste’s work at the shelter to the pigeon, then back to Nora, and finally to whether Babs can take the photograph to school for show and tell.

“Please?” she asks, pressing both hands together beneath her chin. “I can tell everybody Mommy helped people.”

Biddy grabs my sleeve. “I wanna tell, too.”

I look at the photograph and then at my daughters. Babs insists she asked first, Biddy informs her that she runs “too crazy,” and Mom hides her smile behind her coffee.

I pick up the photograph and slide it into a protective sleeve from the folder beside the table. “You can take it, but it stays with your teacher until you come home.”

Babs throws her arms around my neck before I finish speaking. Biddy joins from the other side, and I end up trapped between them. Mom laughs across the table.

“Okay,” I manage, catching Biddy’s elbow before it connects with my coffee. “You both have school, which means hugging me to death creates scheduling problems.”

Emma goes after them before the argument can become physical.

Mom waits until the girls disappear toward the living room before carrying her coffee to the island. “You look better.”

I stack the breakfast plates beside the sink. “I slept.”

“That isn’t what I mean.”