She only used the good cups when she had already decided how the afternoon would go.

She patted the cushion beside her before I had my coat off.

“Come.

Sit.

You are too thin in the shoulders.”

Julian pulled my chair out, and his mother watched him do it, then smiled at me as if we had both passed something.

The rattle came out of a black velvet box.

Silver, heavy, the handle worn smooth by a hundred years of somebody’s hands.