There was a certain kind of newt that lived in gently trickling streams with particular configurations of river stones. The newts spent their whole lives in the same water, growing thick with moss and mold, and if a single stone was shaken out of place, they would die. Papa was like that. He could sense the smallest of disturbances, a hairline fracture in a marble bust, a debt gone unpaid, and he repaired and resettled it at once. Even a secret could shift the stones in Papa’s
