"Did anyone put a hand on you?"
"No, ma'am."
"Did you bang that piano like a drum?"
Aaliyah's mouth twitched. "No, ma'am. I played the gray song. The page I know. Then the hymn. Then the kitchen part. I didn't wear it like a hat."
Ruth closed her eyes for half a second, which was her version of sitting down. When she opened them, they were wet and unwilling. She blinked the wetness back with the discipline of a clinic desk. "I turned around for dipping sauce," she said. "Dipping sauce. And you went and had a whole life." She looked at the cup. "Who gave you that?"
"Jordan. He works there. He paid. I can put it down if —"
"You can drink it. It's a gift, not a contract." Ruth turned, then, to the adults, and her voice changed temperature by a few degrees, polite and edged. "I'm her grandmother. Ruth Brooks. I had my back to this for a minute, which I will be thinking about on the bus. If something was said to her that needs saying back, I'd like to hear it from a grown person and not from a rumor."