I’ll handle the serving myself.”

“Mom, the staff is already paid for,” I’d protested.

“I don’t care about the money.” She had cut me off without a blink.

“I care about privacy, and you will respect my wish.”

And I had.

Of course I had.

She was my mother, and I was thirty-four years old and still, somewhere deep down, the girl who did what Beatrice Fairchild said.

I did not think, why does a birthday party in a fenced backyard require the removal of every witness who is not family? I did not ask the question, because the answer was unthinkable, and the unthinkable is precisely the thing a loving daughter is trained never to think.