She did not yet understand that the waiting itself was the answer.

Chapter 2 — Just Drop It

When Emily finally looked at Andrew directly, willing him to speak, he only murmured, “Mom, just drop it.”

Victoria did not drop it.

When a waiter leaned in and gently explained to Grace where her soup cup had been placed, Victoria made a face, as though she had witnessed something distasteful.

“See?” she said.

“Everything has to be explained to her.

Is my son supposed to spend his life taking care of her too?”

“My mother takes care of herself perfectly well,” Emily replied.

“But she can’t see.”

Grace inhaled slowly, and when she spoke, her voice was quiet and entirely without heat.

“Not being able to see doesn’t prevent me from understanding how someone treats other people,” she said.

“And today, I’ve learned quite a lot.” It was, Emily would think later, the truest sentence spoken at that table all evening, and the most quietly devastating, because it named the thing Victoria least wanted named: that her cruelty was not hidden by her victim’s blindness but, if anything, revealed more clearly to it.

Grace could not see Victoria’s expensive watch, or her designer dress, or any of the props of superiority Victoria had assembled to impress.