There are people who spend their whole lives trying to command a room and never manage it.

My seven-year-old did it, once, when it counted, in a wrinkled gold dress, and the memory of it will warm me for the rest of my life.

The distance across that room could not have been more than thirty feet, but I aged a decade watching her cross it.

She stopped beside Beatrice’s chair.

And when she spoke, her small clear voice carried all the way to the far end of the long table, steady and unwavering.

“Grandma,” Chloe said.