My mother had the memory of an elephant. But “Brazil” hadn’t been uttered. My parents didn’t know that Wendy had gone to Rio for procedures, quite possibly under the skilled hands of Dr. Vítor Calvo.

I didn’t want to think about all the parts of my sister’s body Vítor Calvo had monkeyed with.

Wendy hadn’t called again.

By now the second cup was filling with coffee, so I ran upstairs to see what Teo and the girls were doing.

I found my nieces building a tent with their top sheets and towels. Teo and Bismarck were in the center.

I watched from the doorway as the giggling grew louder and the thumping of Bismarck’s tail did, too.

“Aunt Ryan! Can you help me tie these?” Holly held up the ends of two sheets.

Three weeks ago Holly wouldn’t have asked me for a glass of water after a week in the desert. “What’s the problem?”

“They keep slipping!”

“I’ll hold, you tie.”

She favored me with a big smile, and I was reminded how much she looked like her father—the father who was aware that something was happening that I wasn’t sharing with him.

I lifted both sheets by the hem and winked at Teo, who was reclining against the wall like a desert sheikh.

“Don’t get too comfortable,” I warned. “You still have to get out when they’re done.”

He draped an arm over his canine buddy and closed his eyes, the picture of bliss.

I wondered if Bryce ever horsed around with his daughters. When I moved in, the girls had been prissy and subdued, as if nobody ever dared to tickle them or mess up their hair. But since then, they had both blossomed so much. I wanted to believe those seeds had been planted by their father.

Bryce had sent me a handful of carefully veiled emails. I was sure email from a nuclear sub wasn’t private, thus the need for skillfully worded platitudes and questions, but his meaning was clear. I had sided with my sister in the divorce, and I was shielding Wendy from him as well as his lawyer.

If only. As bad as that sounded, the real scenario was so much worse.

Downstairs I finished the coffee, adding cream and a slug of the Irish to both mugs. I was working on hot chocolate for the girls when Teo and Bismarck came down, too.

I held out coffee for Teo and a dog biscuit for his sidekick. “I was preparing to pay ransom.”

“When those girls start to crash, they’re going to crash hard.”

“At least they won’t need baths tonight. Do you think if I yell upstairs and tell them to get into their pajamas, they’ll hop right to it?”

“If that’s hot chocolate, you can bribe them.”

I went to the foot of the stairs and yelled his suggestion upstairs. When nobody argued—or responded—I figured they were congratulating themselves for having such an outstanding aunt.

Back in the kitchen I offered Teo another pass on the evening’s festivities.