“Ellen, honey, come with me. I want to show you something.”

I thought I knew who was speaking. Peeling myself from the plastic straps of my lawn chair, I turned to see my Aunt Diana behind me, standing imperiously in front of the afternoon sun, her broad figure rendered dark. I tried to act like I hadn’t seen her. Even on such a warm and celebratory day as my cousin Jordan’s graduation–– a day when I thought the heat might sap everyone’s energy for petty family conflicts––I heard in her words a hint of intrigue, a change in the weather.

I shuffled around to look at my little cousin, who was playing in the grass at my feet, throwing his older brother Jordan’s tasseled mortarboard like an ungainly frisbee two feet across the yard at a time. “I can fly!” he said. “I can fly!”

I ruined the act by turning back. Aunt Diana had not looked away.

My next thought was to buy time. “Just a few minutes, Aunt Diana, I haven’t given Jordan his present yet,” I sa