I had never associated the word with my mother.

For as long as I had known her she had been the serene manager of a dangerous man’s household, keeping a calm surface over depths she never let show, and I had mistaken the composure for contentment the way you mistake a frozen lake for solid ground.

This was different.

This was not composure held in place by effort.

This was the real thing, arrived at last, in the final stretch of her life, in a place with no guards and no secrets, beside the two people she had wanted and a lake she loved.

Beside her, perched on the low stone wall with a sketchpad in her lap, sat Juliet.