I lay in bed that night and felt the difference in my own body.

For two weeks I had been acted upon — the will read at me, the arrangements discussed over me, the papers slid in front of me, the kindnesses performed around me.

I had been a subject, a problem, a matter to be handled.

And somewhere in the drive home from Mr.

Bradley’s office, with my husband’s forty years of foresight in my handbag, that had quietly ended.

I was not waiting for anyone to decide my future anymore.