When Judge Elden Marwick looked down at my coffee-stained apron, asking if my ‘genius brain’ could count beyond ten, and let my parents laugh as if they were already burying me, he didn’t know that the woman they were mocking had a tape recorder in her pocket, a Harvard law degree in her briefcase, and a grandmother who had prepared a final trap specifically for rooms like this.

And just like that, the deal was done. Moving to Vermont felt like stepping out of a corporate lobby and into a real life. Eleanor’s house in Larks Falls was a tall old brick Victorian with creaky floors, deep porches, and windows that rattled when the wind came down the county road.

It smelled like lemon polish, old books, and stew that had been on the stove since noon. Papers lived in honest stacks. Maps hung on the walls.

Boots sat by the back door. The kitchen table was round and scarred and always in use. For the first time in my life, dinner was not decorative.

It was mandatory, and it was loud. No phones. No disappearing.

No pretending. Eleanor did not ask me vague questions adults ask when they do not want real answers. She asked specific ones.

“What do you think about the zoning fight over the new mall?”