So I put the paper down and I said, “Yes.

All nine.”

And then I said the only thing I asked for in that entire conversation, and I asked for it badly.

“Can I ask one thing that isn’t a change?”

“Go on.”

“If it goes wrong — if he hates me, if it doesn’t take, if in a year he doesn’t want it — will you tell me that straight?

Will you not manage me?”

Jessi thought about that for a long moment, and then she said, “That’s the first thing you’ve said today that I actually believe you’ll need.”