“You don’t get to say who’s allowed to be in this room.”

Her hand on the rail was not an accident and it was not for support.

It was the oldest move in that woman’s repertoire, which is the establishment of position.

A hand on a rail says: I am a fixture here.

I am part of the furniture of this family.

You may be about to ask me to leave but you will have to physically unseat me to do it, and you will look like a monster while you do.

And then the sentence, which is the sentence I had been waiting eleven years to hear her say so that I could finally hear how it sounded out loud.