Her kitchen was brand new.

The stove still had a delivery sticker on the glass, dated the eleventh of April.

“You bought a new stove,” I said.

“I got a new everything.” She set the bottle in a pan of water and turned the flame up far too high.

“I’m sixty-one years old, and I’m done waiting my turn.”

Then, with her back turned to me, she said, “Four hundred and eighty-six thousand dollars is nothing, you know.

Not in the grand scheme of a family.