Nancy went quiet on the line for a second — just a beat too long — before she answered.

“That’s good to hear, Mom.” But she said it flatly, with none of the warmth I had expected, and the flatness puzzled me.

I turned the oddness of it over for a moment and then set it down, the way you do with a small wrong note from someone you trust.

Nancy had always been my prickliest child, quick to find the cloud in any silver lining, and I assumed her flatness was just that — her nature, or her grief, or some sisterly friction with Clinton I had not been told about.

It did not occur to me to take it as a warning, because I did not yet know there was anything to be warned about.