“It is just a little stiff,” I said, pausing to catch my breath before I spoke. “It will go away once I stretch.”
Susan, my other aunt, folded her arms and tilted her head, her sharp eyes scanning my face from the other end of the couch. She had always been the one to ask the questions my parents tried to laugh off at Sunday dinners.
“How long has it been hurting like that?” Susan asked slowly.
“Since yesterday,” I said, looking down at the worn Monopoly board to avoid her gaze. “I think I slept on it wrong.”
“Your father said you had a fall last week at your apartment,” Susan said, her voice dropping to a quieter register that did not carry toward the kitchen. “Is that true?”
“I tripped on the rug,” I said, though my fingers clenched in my lap until my knuckles turned white. “It was nothing.”
Caroline did not look away, her fingers tightening on the edge of her phone until her knuckles matched mine.
“You never used to trip this much when you were little, Olivia,” Caroline said. “And yet every time I visit, you have a new bruise.”
