Freya pressed play, and Grandma’s voice filled the yard, sharp and unmistakable. “That boy is not really one of us. Your mother adopted him, and adopted is not the same as blood. I don’t want him at my table pretending he belongs.” Forks went still. My brother turned all the way around from the grill. My sister set down her phone. Everyone had spent years excusing Grandma’s little jokes, and now they were hearing, in her own recorded voice, exactly what those jokes had always meant underneath.

Julian’s small hand went cold inside mine. I felt him understand, right there at the table, what his great-grandmother truly thought of him. But Freya was not finished. She looked around at the aunts and uncles who had said nothing, and told them, “She’s said it to me three separate times. She wanted me to help convince Mom to stop bringing him. She picked me because she thought I was too quiet to ever repeat it.” Then she turned back to Grandma and delivered the line that broke the whole table open.