For ten years I had been drinking her devotion, and it had been the devotion that was killing me.

Chapter 3 — The Cup

That afternoon I walked into the kitchen and found my cup waiting on the table.

Something had settled faintly at the bottom of it.

Without a word, I poured it down the sink.

At dinner Ottoline served me soup and said, with a warmth that put ice down my spine, “Eat well, dear.