At my sister’s wedding reception, my mother demanded I sign over the penthouse my grandmother left me—and when I refused, she slapped me in front of half of Boston. She thought that would finish me. Then my grandmother walked in with a lawyer.

That evening Eleanor came over with takeout from a narrow little place in the North End she had loved for twenty years, the sort of restaurant where the owner remembered her order and pretended not to know anything else about the family. We ate at the kitchen island under the pendant lights while the harbor darkened beyond the glass. She did not ask me how I felt. That was her kindness. She knew feelings are easiest to survive once the structural questions have been answered.

When I told her the scholarship fund could be operational by fall if we moved quickly, she nodded. “Your grandfather would have liked that.”

A minute later she added, almost casually, “Your mother called me seven times before lunch.”

“Did you answer?”

“I am elderly, Paige. Not reckless.”

That time I laughed without effort.