I mean that.”

“No one,” I said, when I could speak, “is being fired.”

Chapter 7 — Something You Need to Know

I thought that ended it.

I thought I had restored order in the only way now available to me — by surrendering, by letting the housekeeper stay, by giving my mother the one concession that would stop her threatening to leave.

I was already, in my mind, moving on to the day’s real business.

That was the measure of how little I understood what was happening in my own house.