I hung up.

And then I reached to the very back of the pantry shelf, behind a massive, dusty tin of oats that no one in that house but me had touched in years, and I pulled out a debit card I had hidden there fourteen months before.

My war chest.

The small, secret, quietly assembled account that a clear-eyed part of me had started building long before the rest of me was ready to admit why.

Tomorrow was Fiona’s sixtieth jubilee.

She wanted a spectacular gift, a feast to remember.