It’s not Mr. Sibley’s story I’m researching, she thought. It isn’t Venita’s, either. It is mine. I have to know what kind of people I come from. The good kind? Or the kind that pretend to be good? “Tell me what happened that night.”

Her grandparents said nothing.

Big old drooly Moose pressed his nose against Macey. Aus collected the dog, rubbing ears and cheeks to keep Moose happy. Zipper slept on. Aus flicked off the television.

Macey stacked the dessert plates and coffee cups scattered on the coffee table. She dealt the photographs onto the coffee table, like Stella Miller in the nursing home, heavy and scary, demanding a card game and some truth.

“Macey, times were different then,” said her grandfather tiredly. “We’ve all gotten to know better. Our attitudes have changed. We were prejudiced in those days, and it was wrong, and we have come a long way.”

Macey yanked herself upright, swirling around the coffee table, and Austin thought: She’s learned it, her grandmother’s flounce, that was perfect.

“Every time!” said Macey, twining her fingers to stop herself from hurling the dessert plates against the wall. “Every single time I ask what happened, people change the subject. Even now you want to talk about how times have changed. I don’t care how times have changed, Grandfather. I care about one night.”

She tapped the photograph of the melted mass that had been a car, until her grandparents were forced to look where her finger lay. “Grandfather! Did you set that fire? Are you admiring your work?” she said fiercely.

He was aghast. He held up a trembling hand covered with age spots and a blue shiver of veins. He looked as old as Mr. Collins. “Macey! You can’t think that.”

“I do think that.”

Her grandfather got to his feet, gripping the sofa edge for help. He was the same height as Macey and he glared into her face. “I would never do such a thing. I am horrified that you are speaking to me like this. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!”

“Then how about my grandfather?” said Austin. “Did he set it?”

“Nonsense.”

“Then who did?” said Macey.

“I don’t think there was ever an investigation. The boy moved elsewhere, but it didn’t drive him away, if that was the intent.”

“He wasn’t a boy,” said Macey.

“Yes, he was. He was only twenty-two. Everybody thought he would be scared and run. Well, he was scared, but he didn’t run. And I had to give him credit. In school, he never mentioned it to his students. Even to your mother, who was in his class. He never lashed out at the children. He conducted himself well.”

“I didn’t ask that,” Macey said. “I asked how you conducted yourself.”