Ford flinched a little at the phrase I wish I wasn't so me, but he let her keep talking, giving her a chance to explain exactly what she meant before he reacted to it. And he did know what she meant, because obviously he'd noticed, and it was even something that he'd talked about with other people — explicitly with Noble, implicitly with Verity and Mama. He wished it was a problem that he knew how to solve, because it hurt deep in his chest to think that people who didn't know Grace would come away from an interaction with her with such a wrong opinion. She was smart, and funny, but she rarely seemed it when talking with anyone outside the family. Ford wished that everyone could see Grace the way he saw her, but he didn't know how to make that happen and more than he knew how to recover all of the investments Papa had lost before he died.

"I'll be your grey dress tomorrow night," he said, which was sort of a joke but not entirely. "I'll stand with you as long as you want. I'll make you feel safe."