What was going on in the woman’s mind? I wondered. Was she hiding something? Was she simply being dramatic? Had the pressure driven the poor creature to the edge of madness? Or was it me? I was beginning to learn that when you’re bereaved, as I have been, you live in a shattered looking-glass world. Nothing is as it seems. I needed to focus: to pull myself back together into that single, intense, burning intelligence I once had been. And I needed to do it quickly.
