No relative would automatically become the person in charge just because they were older, louder, or more insistent.

On the walk home, Maya said she’d felt strange hearing someone describe our mistakes in practical terms rather than moral judgments.

“It made the future seem manageable,” she said.

“I think it is.”
“Not because we can stop bad people from making bad choices,” she continued.

“Because we can stop handing them our decisions.”
A few days later, I received a message from an old colleague in Germany.

He had heard I’d moved to a less demanding position and wondered whether I missed international projects.