Still, he did not pull the box out during the gift exchange.
He did not stand up and deliver a speech.
He did not try to embarrass Lorraine in front of everyone simply because she had embarrassed Zia.
Instead, the day continued under the strained politeness Lorraine preferred, while that ugly little tag stayed with us long after the wrapping paper was cleared away.
At 9:12 that night, I found Zia sitting on the guest-room bed with the vanilla candle resting in her lap.
Her gold dress, so crisp that morning, was wrinkled now from a full day of sitting, playing, eating, and trying not to show how much three handwritten words had bothered her.
She kept staring at the tag.
Not angrily.
Not even tearfully.
She studied it with the serious concentration children sometimes give to adult cruelty when they are trying to determine whether it contains a rule they are supposed to understand.
