Bernadette’s smile stayed fixed, but her fingers tightened around the stem of her wine glass. “Louise, this is not the time,” she said lightly. Grandma did not blink. “Then I will help you, dear. Tell them who runs Riverside, and who sat in that command room for three days.” Twenty-four relatives turned toward my mother, and nobody lifted a fork. Grant slowly raised his eyes from his plate and looked at me.

Bernadette laughed, a thin and brittle sound, and said I pushed papers in a basement. Then Grant’s phone buzzed beside his glass. He read the screen, and the color drained from his face. He stood so quickly that his chair scraped the floor. “Bernadette,” he said quietly, “this message is from the hospital board, and it has my sister-in-law’s name in the first line.”