Trust, I learned again, returns the way it leaves: in increments, and only if you do not rush it with decoration.

Harold Quinn retired at the end of that fiscal year.

At his last meeting he looked down the table at me and said, “Your mother left you shares.

You finally sat in the chair as if they were yours.” Then he collected his pen and left before anyone could turn the sentence into a tribute.

I kept it anyway.

In late spring a journalist asked for a profile.

The proposed angle was familiar: the quiet wife who outsmarted a faithless husband.