For nearly twenty-five years of my life, Mary Rumsey had been my touchstone. She wasn’t my first or only cherished friend but my dearest. I knew her before my husband. Before my daughter. Before Franklin Roosevelt. In some sense, I knew her before I knew myself. Mary had recently been more of a partner to me than Paul. And without her, I somehow felt a stranger in my own skin. Before she died, she’d asked, Isn’t it a great comfort to know that we’ll always have each other? Now that comfort had been obliterated. I
