Anna thought about that evening often over the years, because the whole incident left her with so many conflicting emotions. The next day her mother came into her room and sat her down for a talk. Anna had expected her to be supportive in the same way her father had been, but that’s not what happened.

Her mother told her that her father had called her grandmother and yelled at her for pinching Anna, using a voice that she had never heard him take before. Obviously, her grandmother was not pleased to be talked to that way by her favorite son, so she hung up the phone on him. Anna’s mother had always suffered a strained relationship with her Korean mother-in-law, who would never quite look her in the eye, because she deemed her unworthy of her son. Anna’s mother told her that her father was an important and very busy man and that these small matters would be better kept from him in the future because now it was going to take a while for everyone to get past what had happened.

Anna was so surprised by her mother’s reprimand that she just nodded mutely. After her mother left her room, Anna cried, and wrote in her diary that she loved her daddy more than her mommy because he was nicer and better and obviously loved her more, too. Ashamed at putting her feelings down on paper and afraid they would be found out later, she tore out the page, ripped it up, and flushed the torn scraps down the toilet.

Anna hadn’t thought about that second part of the memory in a long time. She and her mother weren’t very close, and if she had to say why, it was probably because of this very incident. In that moment, it was like her mom had declared her allegiance and shown where her true loyalties lay, not with her daughter but with her husband. Sometimes she wondered whether her mother was jealous over how her father doted on her. She and her father had far more in common, similar in so many ways. They were both quiet and calm, though socially adept, calculating but not cold. And of course they shared a love of dogs, admiring them for their simple natures and unconditional love. Anna checked the time and hurried back to find Lee Ann, her dog handler, and wish her well before the judging … and to give Jon Snow a good luck kiss on the snoot, for good measure.

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