"God, did she even look at this picture before posting it? A wrinkled body like that should be hidden from everyone. Gross! 🤮"
I stared at the words for a long time.
Then they vanished.
Brittany deleted the comment.
Too late.
I had already taken the screenshot.
"A wrinkled body like that should be hidden from everyone."
George found me at the kitchen table with the paper still warm from the printer.
He read it once.
Then he set both hands on the back of the chair across from me.
"Mary."
I folded the paper.
Not neatly.
"She meant to send it to someone else," he said.
"That doesn't make it better, George."
"She meant to send it to someone else."
Outside, our neighbor's sprinkler ticked across the lawn. Inside, the swimsuit dripped one slow drop onto the linoleum.
I called Brittany because I was raised to give people room to become better than their worst sentence.
She answered on the fourth ring.
"How are you, honey?" I asked.
There was a little laugh on the other end.
"Oh, now you want to play sweet grandma?"
"How are you, honey?"
I looked at George. His lips thinned out.
"Brittany, I saw the comment."
"So? You embarrassed this family online," she snapped. "My children do not need to see that kind of behavior normalized. Stay away from them."
I sat straighter.
"What kind of behavior?"
"Posting inappropriate pictures. At your age."
"You embarrassed this family online."
At your age.
