She’s here as a daughter.” “I’ll stand,” I said.

I stood because a table is a trap you sit down into.

The moment you take the offered chair, you have accepted the shape of the meeting they designed, and every document slides toward you across a surface that belongs to them.

So I stayed on my feet, near the doorway, where I could see all five of the lawyers and both of my relatives at once, and I let the silence stretch until it belonged to me instead of to my mother.

I counted, without seeming to.