Her gold dress was still wrinkled from the day before.

Her Mary Janes were scuffed again already.

But her posture, as she rose, was remarkably, unforgettably composed, the posture not of a frightened child but of a person who has decided something and is no longer afraid, who has found, somewhere overnight, the bottom of her own courage and discovered it was solid.

Around the long table, one by one, the relatives fell silent and turned to watch her, because there is something about a child moving with that kind of purpose that stops a room cold.

Nobody said a word.