Lawrence had said it to me a hundred times across our marriage, usually when someone was trying to fuss over me or do a thing for me I was perfectly capable of doing myself.

She can stand on her own two feet, he would say, with a particular pride, and step back and let me.

It had always warmed me, that faith of his.

Now, at my own dining table, with the whole thing resting on whether a ninety-year-old woman could hold her nerve and speak plainly in front of a room that had already half decided she was too frail to manage her own affairs, I understood that his faith had not been idle.

He had believed I could stand on my own because he intended, one day, to need me to — and that day had arrived, and I was not going to let him down.