Patricia moved among the guests, smiling, adjusting the serving utensils, replenishing the ice, and making sure that every photograph looked natural.
Travis's two sons were already playing roughly near the patio fence, bumping into lawn chairs and daring each other to make more noise.
Vanessa's daughter sat alone on the patio steps, half-hidden behind her phone, which revealed more about that family than any polite conversation ever could.
Lily tried to play with her cousins almost immediately.
I saw her walking towards them with a plastic bucket and a shy smile, still at the age when most children take it for granted that other children will be kind to them.
The attempt lasted less than ten minutes.
Travis's boys kept snatching things out of her hands, invading her space and laughing when she looked at them in bewilderment.
Finally, she came back to my chair, climbed onto my lap, and whispered that she wanted to go home because the boys were mean.
I told him we would leave after the cake.
I still regret every day not getting up then and leaving.
Around 4:30, the party entered that lazy phase that summer gatherings always reach, when people settle more comfortably in garden chairs and conversation flows instead of moving around.
Lily had been patient and asked if she could go in to get some water.
I reminded him that his cup was in the kitchen.
From where James and I were sitting, we could see through the open sliding glass door directly to the counter and refrigerators near the pantry wall.
The house seemed familiar to me.
The distance was short.
I let her go.
Thirty seconds later, Gerald's voice boomed so loudly that half the yard turned around instantly.
James and I looked up.
Through the door I saw Lily standing next to the drinks refrigerator, holding a red soda can with both hands.
Gerald loomed over her, pointing his finger at her, and her face turned red in that way I knew all too well from my childhood.
Lily said, in her sincere little voice, that she was sorry and that she didn't know.
Before I reached the door, Gerald ripped his belt from his waist in a furious motion and threw it down.
He never managed to land a clean punch.
Lily abruptly stepped back to get away from him, her sandals slipped on the tiles and she fell heavily.
The back of his head hit the kitchen floor with that horrible sound.
Then her small body twitched.
James ran past me and, at the same time, called the emergency services.
I plopped down beside her, told myself not to move her neck, put a clean towel on the back of her neck, and kept repeating her name.
His eyes were closed.
She did not answer.
His breathing was shallow and shallow, making each second seem longer than it actually was.
My father stood in front of us, still holding his belt.
He seemed irritated, not horrified.
He said she had taken a soft drink without permission, as if that sentence justified the scene in front of him.
Vanessa, who had entered the kitchen behind me,
He looked at Lily and shrugged with a serenity I will never understand.
He said someone had to teach him respect.
Then my mother pronounced the sentence that ended what little loyalty I had left towards them.
He said Lily deserved it for being rude.
Hearing those words while trying to maintain pressure on my son's head changed something permanently inside me.
The ambulance arrived in a matter of minutes, although it felt like an hour.
The paramedics took control with the calm and efficiency of people accustomed to disasters.
Lily had a cervical collar placed around her neck.
One doctor asked her questions while another checked her pupils and lifted her onto a stretcher.
James got into the ambulance with her.
I started to follow them, but a police officer who had arrived with the emergency medical team asked me if I could give him an initial statement.
I looked at my father again.
He was already trying to convince people that it had been an accident.
I told the officer I would talk at the hospital, I gave him my card out of pure reflex and I went to my daughter's side with my hands covered in blood.
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