Emma cried against her shoulder for a long time. Natalie rocked her, the way she had when Emma was small enough to hold in one arm, and looked over her head at the paper lanterns, and thought about another girl, eighteen, in a house in Baker full of pianos, whose mother had died in March, and who had sat alone on a bench in August and asked a stranger if anyone had ever come back.
After a while, Emma's breathing slowed. She pulled back and wiped her nose on her wrist, unselfconsciously, the way she had at four.
"Is Dad going to leave?" she said.
"I don't know," Natalie said. "I don't think so. But I don't know. He's very hurt. He has a right to be."
"Because you lied to him."
"Yes."