Ackerman kept doing that.

Every time one of them jumped in, he stopped them — I didn’t ask you — and turned back, and waited.

I cannot tell you what that did to me, to be waited for.

It was such a small courtesy, and I had been starved of it so completely, that it nearly undid me right there in front of everyone.

A stranger in a white coat had restored my voice to me simply by refusing to let anyone else use it.

And once I had it back, I found I was not going to hand it over again, to anyone, for the rest of my life.