The next stretch of that meal is the strangest thing I have ever done.

I had to be, all at once, a woman enjoying her Sunday dinner and a woman running an operation to save her own life, and I could not let a single flicker of the second reach the surface of the first.

I complimented the roast.

I asked Blanca about her garden.

I laughed at something Dario said, and I do not remember what it was, because every part of my attention was on the mug at my right hand and the hallway to my left and the timing of when I could reasonably send my son out of the room.

I had spent my whole career keeping calm in front of frightened children and their frightened parents, holding a steady face while a small body coded in front of me.