“Okay, but it’s a secret,” she said in a semi-whisper, looking around. Our fellow churchgoers were standing about, chatting and drinking their coffee. No one was paying attention. Madisyn took a big breath.

“Nanny Hansen’s doggie has glass fur.”

I really wasn’t sure what to do with that. “Really? Wow.”

“Uh-huh.” She was grinning up at me excitedly.

I wracked my brain for a follow-up. “Does he talk?”

She looked surprised. “How’d you know?”

“Well, lots of dogs can, you know. But they only talk to the very nicest people.”

“I don’t think most of them can talk,” she said doubtfully.

“Tell the truth, Madisyn,” Justine cut in. “Dogs can’t talk at all.”

Her tone seemed unnecessarily severe to me. Then again, it often did.

Madisyn looked up at her mother with a strange expression. Then she looked at her feet, pushing at the floor tiles with one toe, then the other.

“The doggie says Mommy’s leaving us.”

Shocked, I glanced up at Ben. He just looked back at me, equally surprised. But Justine reacted with fury.

“Madisyn, shame on you! No lying! Go stand in that corner. Not a sound ’til I come get you.”

Madisyn burst into tears and ran to the corner. Practically everyone in the room turned to look. Justine flushed in embarrassment. So did Tiff and Jazzy, the older girls. Lia, who was five, just looked confused and scared. Her lower lip quivered.

I got mad. Justine was overreacting, as usual. Madisyn was a really sweet kid, and she wasn’t a liar. She just had a weird imagination and the impulse control of, well, a three-year-old. I took a breath to give Justine a piece of my mind, but she beat me to the punch.

“This is what comes of having your influence around,” she hissed. “Stay away from us!”

“Me?” I was totally taken aback. “What could I possibly have to do with it?”

Justine didn’t respond, but she stared at me with such unmistakable hatred that I backed away a few steps. I’d always known she didn’t care for me, but were her feelings that strong?

“Okay, okay, let’s all calm down,” my brother soothed. “That was a real humdinger, but it’s just attention-getting behavior. Let’s not make too much of it.”

Justine got a crazy look on her face. “Oh, ‘attention-getting behavior,’ is it? What, you been watching Dr. Phil in your spare time?”

This was the point where their arguments always devolved into the “why are you so jealous?” and “why do you always take her side?” stuff, only with more cussing. And a lot of screaming.

That’s probably where Madisyn’s comment came from, actually. I bet she’d heard Justine threaten to leave a dozen times. That’s got to make a kid anxious.