We sat in that private dining room for another twenty minutes after Whitmore said it.
You never have been alone in this.
He did not belabor it. He was not a man who repeated himself or underlined his points with extra words. He simply let it sit between us on the table like something he had set down with care, and we finished our dinner and spoke about the restructuring timeline and the upcoming board positioning, practical and forward-looking, the way two people do when they have already said the significant thing and don’t need to circle back to it.
When I left, he stood again. He shook my hand. And he said, at the door: “Your grandmother was one of the finest people I have ever known. Whatever comes next, carry that with you.”
I walked back to the hotel slowly. Not because it was fa
