The idea of appearing professionally, in a guise other than as the driver attached to her daughter or as a softening embellishment to her husband, appealed to Flannery, and she was flattered to be asked, but her first reaction on reading the dates and location focused on logistics: how could she get there? Who would look after Willa?....Such were the dreary cogs that started turning in her mind, before another item stopped all the machinery cold. Then warm. At the last name shes saw on the list.

Moderating the proceedings

There followed a name so vibrant to Flannery that it appeared to pulse in some foreign colour on her screen, pomegranate red or a sleek jade green, not the black or grey of the others.

Professor Anne Arden.
A woman she once knew.