“She tried to reassure me, telling me that there were so many turtles that many of them were going to make it to the seashore, but then the man narrating the documentary started talking about all the dangers in the sea, including sharks that liked to eat baby turtles, and my mom shut off the television. I was crying and clinging to my stuffed turtle, and all I could think of was all those baby turtles getting eaten by the gulls or making it to the water and thinking they were finally going to be okay, that they were finally safe, and then getting gobbled up by a shark who was prowling that area of the beach, eating turtle after turtle after turtle.”

“It must have been terrible to think those things as a little girl.”

“I’ll never forget how upset I was. Then, after I became a mother myself, when Tessa was little, I watched a documentary on global warming with her, and the filmmakers showed a polar bear cub stranded on an ice floe. She slid into the water to try to swim to the mainland. She struggled more and more to make it, until finally she disappeared beneath the water. Tessa gripped my arm and gasped. ‘Did they help her?’ I remembered the turtles, so I lied and reassured her. ‘Yes. They wouldn’t have let her get hurt.’ ‘Or drown?’ ‘Yes. Or drown. Once they turned off the cameras, they helped her find her mommy.’ She nodded and said, ‘Oh. Okay.’”

Since there was so much going on with the case today, I’d brought my phone along. Although it was silenced, I saw the screen light up with an incoming request from Calvin for a video chat.

I ignored it.

Christie continued. “She didn’t stop holding my arm until the show was over and she went to her room to play, and I heard her reassuring her teddy bear, Francesca, ‘They helped the baby find her mommy again.’ I hope she doesn’t remember me lying to her, but if she does, I hope she’ll forgive me.”

The cell went still.

“Sometimes a lie is a gift?” I ventured, trying to discern where she was going with this.

“Sometimes keeping the truth from someone can be a way to show them love.”

“But the truth is always the greater gift,” I said. “I mean, right?”

She silently stared at her wineglass.

“Is there something you’re trying to tell me?” I asked at last. “Did I say something that hurt you?”

“No, you didn’t. Not at all.”

My phone’s screen lit up.

Calvin again.

Maybe he found the Matchmaker.

“You can answer that, Pat,” Christie said.

“I don’t want it to distract us from tonight, from being together.”

“I know. But it’s okay. Take it.”

“You’re sure?”

“It’s okay. Really.”

I finger-swiped the screen to accept the call.