“Wait, what did I do? I don’t remember.” Katie fixes her eyes on Nana, puzzled. 

           “Oh, Katie, remember when you were four? At the daycare? Silly girl.” 

           “Oh, she got suspended!” Laurie pipes.

           “From daycare?” I jerk forward. My eyes widen.

           “Katie, how’d you manage getting suspended from daycare?” Didi tuts and shakes her head. Katie hides her face and shakes with laughter.

           “Well,” Nana pauses. “We always raised our girls to respect everyone, y’know. We always told ‘em that it doesn’t matter if you’re black or white or purple—you have to respect everyone. And Laurie taught this to Katie. 

           “So when Katie was just over four, we put her in the daycare ‘cross the street. She made friends with this Jamaican girl, probably a year older than her—remember her name, Katie?”

           “Kaleisha, I think,” Katie says.

           “Kaleisha. Yes.” Nana reflects. “Oh they were such good friends! They’d be chattin’ up a storm every time they see each other.

           “So one day, I get this call from the supervisor, and she says to me, I should be takin’ Katie home. ‘What for?’ I asked. Well, she said—” Nana pauses and chuckles. “She says to me, that Katie’s hit a boy over the head with a chair!"

           “Katie!” My sister slaps Katie on the arm. Laurie chuckles in her seat.

           “Anyway,” Nana continues. “‘Why on earth would she do that?’ I asked the supervisor—turns out the boy called Kaleisha the n-word, and Katie heard him say it. Katie told the boy that he shouldn’t say that, and that he should say sorry.” Nana clears her throat and adjusts her glasses. “Of course, when he didn’t listen and said it again…that’s when she hit him. Right in the head.” Katie squeals, her face still buried under a cushion.

           “That’s…” I stare at her in disbelief. “That’s amazing!”

           “Well listen,” Nana continues, “the lady on the phone says to me that she agreed with Kat’, but had to send her home because of a 'no hitting policy'.”

           “Wow.” I sip my Coke. Nana adjusts her glasses again.

           “Y’know, colour never mattered to me growing up,”Nana says. “My best friend was black. We did everything together. We’d call each other sisters. One day we were sitting by the beach and these construction workers passed by us. They must have been drunk or something. They asked us how we knew each other. ‘Sisters’ I said." Nana smiles and thinks. "So one turns to me and says, ‘How come you’re white an’ she’s black?’ I told them that when we were little, my mother was doing laundry and accidentally dropped me in bleach.” Nana chuckles. “I think they believed me.”