By eleven thirty, the winter sun sat pale over the brick wall of my grandmother’s garden room on East Seventy-First Street.

Margaret sat by the glass doors in her high-backed velvet armchair, her silver-tipped cane resting against her knees.

She spread a two-page credit transfer document across the tea table and took a fountain pen from her cardigan pocket.

“This gives you two hundred thousand dollars in cash from my personal line,” Margaret said.

“The legal fees will eat up half of that before January,” I said.

“Then we’ll use the rest for living expenses,” she replied.