I knew where the meeting was.
Damien had mentioned it that morning without thinking, the same restaurant where Margaret always preferred to conduct what she called family conversations, which was her way of describing situations where she intended to be the most powerful person at the table and wanted the environment to confirm it. I had listened and filed it away the way I had learned to file everything and now I was in a taxi moving through the midmorning city traffic with my hands folded in my lap and my heartbeat steady in a way that surprised me.
I was not afraid.
That was the thing I noticed most sitting in the back of that taxi. Six months ago the thought of walking into a room with Margaret Cole knowing what she knew would have dissolved me completely. Six months ago I was a wom
