“This is the first night the doctor said she could be out in a crowd.
“She wanted to come to the fair. She’s been talking about the fair since the second round.”
Her voice cracked right down the middle. “And tonight, in the truck, she said, Mama, I never win anything. Everybody else gets to win something. And then we walked up and there was that bear.”
She looked at Mack. “I would have taken anything for her, Veda. I would have taken it from God himself.
“I’m not saying that makes it right. It doesn’t. I knew it wasn’t right while I was doing it.”
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And then she did something I have never seen my sister-in-law do in twenty years.
She crouched down on the gravel in front of my son, in her good black jacket, so she was looking up at him instead of down.
“Mack,” she said, “I took your bear. That was wrong. I’m sorry. You didn’t do anything to deserve that, and I did it anyway, and I’m so sorry, honey.”
Mack looked at her for a long moment with his serious face. Then he did what Mack does. He pushed the bear into her arms.
“It’s okay,” he said. “This one’s for you. So you have one too. Because you’re sad.”
Viv put both her arms around that bear and around my son at the same time, and she cried into his green T-shirt right there in front of the Ferris wheel line, and Mack patted her on the back, slow, the way I pat him when he has a bad dream.
I stood there and cried too. I did not try to hide it. There was nothing left in me that wanted to win anything.
When Viv finally stood up, she held on to Mack’s hand. “Will you do me one more favor?” she asked him.
“Kinsey doesn’t know very many kids anymore. She’s been home all summer. Would you go ride the Ferris wheel with her?”
Mack’s whole face lit up. He loves the Ferris wheel almost as much as he loves rings.
We walked up to the front of the line together. Adele saw us coming and put her hand on her heart.
Kinsey looked up from the bench, holding the first white bear, and when she saw Mack her eyes went wide.
She stood up fast. Before anybody said a thing, she held the first bear out to him with both hands.
“This is yours,” she said, very quietly. “You won it. Mama shouldn’t have. I wanted to give it back before, but she was walking too fast.”
Mack looked at the bear. Then he looked at his aunt, holding the second one. He frowned, working it out.