You’re allowed to say anything at all to me, and I’m not going anywhere, and there is nothing you can say that will make me go anywhere.

Do you understand that that’s the deal?”

Sophie said yes.

“Then say it as often as you need to,” Margaret said, “and I’ll keep being here, and eventually you’ll stop needing to, and we’ll both be very tired.”

There were people who helped.

Linda came up from Riverside every other weekend for two years.