That evening I sat at the dining table and remembered Eleanor’s strange expression once when Grant introduced himself to her as a self-made businessman.

She had smiled politely and asked whether he’d finished the work he had agreed to do.

He changed the subject.

I had thought she was being rude.

Now I wondered whether she had seen an early version of the same behavior I lived with years later: a confident announcement followed by an expectation that someone else would make the details work.

I looked at the children’s drawings on the refrigerator.