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wrong,” Kit said. “You’re a distraction. Besides, you’re helping clean up. The more we do, the less Pop’ll have to.” She bent over and picked up a bowl. “Damn,” she said. “Mother likes this one. She’ll be upset she broke it.”
    â€œMaybe you can glue it back together,” Val said. “Do you have all the pieces?”
    Kit shook her head. “It isn’t worth it,” she replied. “Mother broke it once already. Maybe she doesn’t like it after all. I always thought she did.”
    Val opened up another garbage bag and started putting broken egg shells in it. “Do you love her?” she asked.
    â€œOh, yeah,” Kit said. “More often than not. You loved your mother, after all, and she spent years being sick.”
    â€œIt wasn’t her fault,” Val said. “She didn’t ask to get cancer.”
    â€œI know,” Kit said. “But you resented it anyway.”
    Val sat down on a kitchen chair, making sure first that there was nothing broken on it. “Michelle was lying,” she said. “She had to have been.”
    Kit continued picking up broken pieces of china. Her back was to Val. “Are you that sure?” she asked.
    â€œAll right,” Val said. “What do you know?”
    Kit continued to look away. “I don’t know anything. It’s just I have a funny feeling about it.”
    â€œLook at me,” Val said. “Please.”
    Kit turned around and faced her.
    â€œWhat do you mean by a funny feeling?” Val asked.
    â€œIt’s hard to explain,” Kit said. “You know how sometimes you hear something and you didn’t know it, but you feel like you know it already?”
    â€œNo,” Val said.
    â€œYes, you do,” Kit said. “It was like that for you when they finally told you your mother had cancer. You knew something was wrong, but they kept denying it, and you wouldn’t admit it to yourself either, but you knew, only you didn’t. And then they told you.”
    â€œI knew she was sick,” Val said. “I just didn’t know with what.”
    â€œYou knew something was the matter,” Kit said. “But you didn’t know she was sick. Don’t forget, I was around. I was the one you talked to. You thought your parents were thinking about a divorce. That was the only thing you could think of to make them whisper.”
    â€œSo I was wrong,” Val said. “But I had my suspicions. Are you going to tell me you’ve always suspected I was adopted?”
    â€œI’ve wondered,” Kit said. She picked up an empty orange juice carton and threw it into the garbage bag, then got a sponge, and began wiping the dried-up juice off the counter.
    â€œWhat was there to wonder about?” Val asked.
    â€œWhy you’re an only child,” Kit said. “Why you don’t have any brothers.”
    â€œMama was sick,” Val said.
    â€œNot until you were ten,” Kit replied. “Almost eleven. And your parents were married for a long time before you were born. What was it, seven, eight years? That’s eighteen years for your mother to give your father a son. You don’t think Rick wants a son to carry on the family name?”
    â€œMaybe Mama miscarried,” Val said. “Like Connie. You know how hard she and Bruno have tried having kids, and they’ve never managed.”
    Kit nodded. “That’s one of the things I’ve remembered,” she said. “Mother was talking to Pop about it once, years ago. About how Connie wanted to go to some shrine to pray for safe delivery for her babies, and your mother wanted to go with her. Mother thought that was barbaric, making a pilgrimage. She’s never really gotten the hang of Catholicism.”
    â€œBut that doesn’t mean I’m adopted,” Val said. “Suppose Mama did want to go with Connie. It could mean she wanted