would have been thirty-three that year, but she had survived only eight months.
Arthur’s opening words made me sit down.
“I couldn’t tell you this while I was alive.”
“Arthur, what have you done?”
A title followed: The Life We Didn’t Get. Its opening chapter was called Maisie’s Fifth Birthday.
Arthur portrayed a little girl stubbornly refusing to wear matching socks.
“Nobody can see them inside my shoes,” Maisie argued.
“They’ll know,” her mother replied.
“Then they shouldn’t be looking.”
I laughed despite myself. He’d given Maisie my stubbornness. In
