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the throng, accidentally elbowing a third cousin.
    She was just … off tonight. Off-balance, off-kilter, off. She felt strangely vulnerable, as though her protective coating had been peeled away, leaving only a mass of nerves and fears painfully visible to anyone who could see. Clemmie caught a glimpse of herself in the Venetian mirror over the mantelpiece and was surprised to see how normal she looked, how put together, her hair in a sleek, blond bob, the collar of her shirt folded neatly down over her suit collar, pearls at her throat and her ears. The pearls were real, as was the Cartier watch at her wrist. She looked like someone’s image of Lawyer Barbie: Professional. Expensive.
    That was the good thing about dark suits; no one could see the coffee stain on the sleeve or the perspiration splotches beneath her arms. Like Mother’s English accent, suits conferred an automatic air of authority.
    “There you are,” said her mother, and took her back under her wing, expertly muscling her way through the crowd to Granny Addie’s chair. Clemmie followed along behind like an unlikely duckling, taller than her mother in her heels, slender where her mother was solid. She had inherited Grandpa Frederick’s build, tall and slim.
    In contrast, Granny Addie had always been diminutive, all of five foot two at best. But Clemmie had never thought of her as small. There was something about the way she held herself that had always belied her inches, an air of authority, of solid sense. Competence, that was it. Competence. Clemmie still remembered how Grandpa Frederick, taller and older, had deferred to Addie, taking her word as the final word.
    It was, as always, a shock to see her as she was now. In Clemmie’s head, Granny Addie was frozen permanently at seventy-something, old, yes, but curiously ageless. Not like this, shrunken and frail. Her knit suit was too large for her wasted frame; Grandpa Frederick’s ring seemed to weigh down her hand.
    There was a nurse standing behind Granny Addie’s chair. She did it very discreetly, managing to do a fairly good impression of a piece of furniture, but she was still there, watching. The chair itself was a hospital chair, on wheels, incongruous among chintz and rosewood that had been unchanged in Granny Addie’s living room for as long as Clemmie could imagine.
    Clemmie felt a sudden surge of panic. It had always been Granny Addie to whom she had turned for security, Granny Addie who represented the constant and the permanent. The idea of a world without her … It wasn’t to be thought of.
    But she was ninety-nine. Not many people made it as far as ninety-nine. Even fewer people made it past it.
    “Is she okay?” Clemmie asked the nurse, trying not to sound as anxious as she felt.
    The nurse nodded. “She’s just nodded off for a bit.” Her voice was the soothing singsong of nurses and nursery-school teachers. “It’s nothing to be alarmed about.”
    If anyone could make it to a hundred and ten, it would be Granny Addie. She’d show death.
    Clemmie knelt by her chair, feeling the close-woven wool of the carpet driving her stockings against her knees. “Granny?” she said softly, resting a hand on the arm of her grandmother’s chair. “Happy birthday, Granny.”
    Granny Addie stirred, blinking. She wore spectacles, thick, unlovely things that seemed too big for her shrunken face. It took a moment for her eyes to focus on Clemmie’s face. Her eyes were filmed, vague, and distant.
    A lump rose in Clemmie’s throat. She forced it down. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she said. “I would have been here sooner, but I stupidly wound up walking.”
    Her grandmother frowned down at her, confusion and alarm chasing across her face. She looked, thought Clemmie, so lost. Lost and confused. So utterly unlike herself.
    “I’m so sorry, Granny.” Clemmie took her grandmother’s veined hand in hers. “I’m sorry I haven’t been back sooner. Work has been nuts.”
    As soon as