But it is the thing that means a broken-down Buick is an inconvenience and not a catastrophe, that a surprise bill is a bad week and not a crisis, that a child can believe, without even knowing she believes it, that the ground beneath her will hold.

I was being asked to hand that ground to a man I had never met, on the word of a sister who could not tell me his company’s name.

Zoe sat down across from me.

“That’s exactly what she asked for.”

“Yes.”

“All of it?”

I looked at the balance.

“All of it.”