A woman in the front row of the crowd gasped and pressed a linen napkin to her mouth.

“The paramedics found us on the lawn,” I said.

“You did not have a single scratch on you.”

“I had third-degree burns over forty percent of my body.”

“I spent three months in the sterile wing of the county hospital while you were taken to a resort in Florida to forget the trauma.”

I looked at Father.

His jaw was set so tight I could see the muscles in his cheek twitching.

“You saved me?” Chloe whispered.

Her voice was thin, almost childish in the quiet backyard.

She looked at her own perfect, sun-tanned arms.

She looked at her flawless shoulders.

“You never told me,” she said.

“They told me you fell in the garden when we were children.”

“They told me you had a rare skin condition that made you sensitive to the sun.”

I saw the first shadow of doubt cross Chloe’s face.

A strange, nervous smile touched the corners of her lips.

It was the smile she always used when she did not want to believe something unpleasant.