She learns it, if she ever does, by watching her no be obeyed, over and over, until she starts to believe it has weight.

It was, Martha came to think, the most important work she did in that whole long year, and almost none of it looked like much.

It was not the surgery, or the medical leave, or the confrontation in the consultation room.

It was a hundred small, unglamorous moments in which Irene said no to something — a phone call, a visit, a hug offered too soon, a plan made without asking her — and Martha simply let the no stand.

Every single time, some old reflex in Martha wanted to smooth it over, to say oh, go on, it’s your father, it won’t kill you to talk to him for a minute, to trade her daughter’s small refusal for a little less awkwardness in the room.