I ask the world’s most obvious question: “All right, who did this?”

I jab a finger at the letters carved into the back of the wooden kitchen chair:

A N N A.

Anna’s older sister chimes in first, rolling her eyes for dramatic effect. “I recognize those backwards Ns anywhere,” she says.

Anna’s fork falls with a guilty clink on the plate. She buries her face in her palms, as if she might squeeze her whole self behind her hands if she presses hard enough.

I trap my tongue behind clenched teeth. Hush, Jennifer. You’ll regret what you’re about to say. I can see the red of shame rising in her cheeks, behind a camouflage of fingers.

I had pledged that I’d never yell over a child’s error or misbehavior. Furthermore, I had actually acknowledge weeks earlier that I found beauty in the unintentional etchings of this wooden kitchen table.

This pine rectangle is a tableau of life with its nicks and scrapes and grooves. I’ve run my fingers along the wood, like a memory-Braille. In the golden slant of sunlight, I find a grandfather’s check marks, which he inadvertently carved with his firm handwriting. He’s gone now.

I touch deep-grooved tine points. They were banged in by a toddler; it was her first time with a “big-people fork.”

I run a finger along that one long scratch. It was an accidental souvenir left by a visiting missionary’s laptop.

And now this: Anna’s name carved in half-inch tall letters on the back of the chair.

She is shuddering behind her hands. I peel her palms back and lift her onto my lap, ladling her body. She shakes. Shame runs fluid down her cheeks.