“And what exactly were you doing in the kitchen today?”
Jack pulled a small white object from his pocket.
It was a funny little imitation cigarette made from a pencil.
“Grandma told us she’d spent years teaching herself a bad movement. So we decided to teach her the opposite. Whenever she feels like smoking, she holds this in her hand, then puts it down on the table, takes a deep breath, and goes for a walk with us.”
Emma added:
“We were practicing it too, to show Grandma that it could be done. When you came in, Jack was just about to put the pencil down.”
Suddenly, I remembered what I’d seen through the window.
Jack had raised his hand toward his face.
But he hadn’t been smoking.
My fear had made me misunderstand everything.
Still, one question continued to trouble me.
“Then why did you hide all this from me?”
