She believed that her little candle, her little tag, had been received and absorbed and swallowed, as everything she did was always received and swallowed, and that the family had once again bent quietly around her will.

I watched her move through her beautiful house being gracious to everyone, and I marveled at how completely she did not know what was coming, because she had never once, in all her calculating, imagined that the person who would finally stand up to her would be the smallest and least powerful person in the room.

Chloe, for her part, got through the day the way she got through all the hard days, quietly, carefully, holding herself together with a composure that no seven-year-old should have had to develop.

She smiled when she was spoken to.