I expected notes. That’s what you brace for when you hand something precious to an editor. You expect margin comments. Structural concerns. A polite but firm list of things that need work. What I did not expect was to be told, in calm, measured language, that the book already does what it set out to do. The response began by describing my manuscript as “a collection of well-crafted essays assembled as a sort of episodic memoir,” and went on to talk about how grief is present