As if to prove arguments were inevitable, Aubrey threw back her head and sent up a wail. Grace stifled the urge to grab her, run out of the house with her, and smother her face with kisses until the tears stopped. Instead she stood firm. ‘‘Aubrey, stop that now. I’m not mad at you. You go on in the kitchen with Grandma and have some juice.’’

‘‘Juice!’’ Aubrey sobbed it, at the top of her lungs, straining away from Carol with her arms held out to Grace and fat tears trembling on her cheeks.

‘‘Carol, take the child in the kitchen and calm her down.’’ Pete clamped down the exact urge as Grace’s and waved a hand at his wife impatiently.

‘‘Child hasn’t shed a tear all day,’’ he muttered, with an accusing look at Grace.

‘‘Well, she’s shedding them now,’’ Grace snapped back, adding layers of guilt onto frustration as Aubrey’s sobs echoed back from the kitchen. ‘‘And she’ll forget them five minutes after they’re dry. That’s the beauty of being two. You get older, you don’t forget tears as easily. You made me cry plenty of them.’’

‘‘You don’t get through parenthood without causing some tears.’’

‘‘But some people can get through it without ever knowing the child they raised. You never looked at me and saw what I was.’’

Pete wished he was standing. He wished he had shoes on his feet. A man was at a distinct disadvantage when he was kicked back in a recliner without his damn shoes on. ‘‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’’

‘‘Or maybe you did—maybe I’m wrong about that. You looked, you saw, and you put it aside because it didn’t fit in with what you wanted. You knew,’’ she continued in a low voice that nonetheless snapped with fury. ‘‘You knew I wanted to be a dancer. You knew I dreamed of it, and you let me go right on. Oh, taking the lessons was fine with you. Maybe you grumbled about the cost of them from time to time, but you paid for them.’’

‘‘And a pretty penny it came to over all those years.’’

‘‘For what, Daddy?’’

He blinked. No one had called him Daddy in nearly three years and it pinched at his heart. ‘‘Because you were set on having them.’’

‘‘What was the point if you were never going to believe in me, never going to let go enough or stand by enough to let me try to take the next step?’’

‘‘This is old business, Grace. You were too young to go to New York, and it was just foolishness.’’