“So do you.”
She glanced at my dress, then at me. “You look like a woman who has finally stopped asking to be admitted.”
I laughed softly. “Was I asking?”
“Yes,” she said, not unkindly. “In the way all self-made women ask when they are still hoping the old institutions might bless them in exchange for excellence. They won’t. Not really. They’ll use your money, praise your work, quote your resilience, and still privately ask where you came from as though origin were destiny.”
I looked out over Fifth Avenue, all lights and taxis and reflected glamour.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I thought of Derek. Of Constance. Of the version of myself who had believed love might grant me entry into a family that prized blood over character.
“Yes,” I said. “I do now.”
Eleanor rested one gloved hand over mine for a brief moment.
“Good.”
That was all. No speech. No congratulations.
Real women of power rarely narrate each other’s transformations. They simply witness them and move aside to make room.
The last I heard, Derek had relocated to Boston.