For a moment, I remembered getting ready for school with her standing behind me, smoothing a collar, warning that Graham was waiting in the car.

She had often been kind in the space between his impatience and my response.

The kindness was real.

The expectation that I should hurry up and become easier was real too.

I had learned to live in that narrow space.

Answer politely.

Make the explanation brief.

Do not turn an inconvenience into a subject everybody would discuss.