My mother shook her head gently, clearly uncomfortable with being the center of attention.

Mike continued anyway.

“And today, that child grew up and wanted to give her mother one evening she never got to experience.”

He glanced at me.

“That isn't pathetic, Brianna. That's love.”

The courtyard had become so quiet that I could hear the faint music coming from the gymnasium doors.

Brianna's cheeks turned pink.

“Dad, you're making me sound like a terrible person. I didn't know all that.”

“You knew enough to see that she was happy,” he replied. “And you chose to humiliate her anyway.”

“I was joking!”

Mike took a breath.

“Let me tell you something about jokes. If everyone is laughing except the person you're targeting, maybe the problem isn't that they don't have a sense of humor.”

One of Brianna's friends suddenly became very interested in adjusting her bracelet. Another looked away.

For the first time that evening, Brianna seemed to realize that the people around her weren't going to rescue her from the moment she'd created.

But Mike wasn't finished.

He reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a small, cream-colored envelope.

“Do you know what this is?”

Brianna stared at it.

“No.”

“It's a photograph.”

He opened the envelope carefully and removed an old picture. The edges were worn, and the colors had faded slightly with time.

He held it up.

It showed a teenage girl standing outside a school gym in a simple dress. Her hair was curled, and she was smiling, but there was something uncertain in her expression.