She was, she told me, a patient woman married to an impatient certainty, and she understood that a thing like this had exactly one right moment.

Too early and Odette would smother it — she’d get Hattie fired, get the man threatened off, get the story rewritten before anyone with power was in the room to hear it.

No.

It had to be said out loud, in front of everyone who mattered, at the precise instant the lie was about to become law.

It had to be undeniable and it had to be public.

There was a cost to the waiting, and she knew it, and she carried it.