Chap­ter 19 begins as Bar­bara Robin­son braces against the bit­ing win­ter air, her breath vis­i­ble in the crisp cold as she approach­es 70 Ridge Road. Wrapped in a red coat that stands out against the mut­ed tones of the snow-cov­ered street, she feels a ner­vous ener­gy course through her. The house she nears belongs to Olivia Kings­bury, a revered Amer­i­can poet whose lit­er­ary lin­eage con­nects to the likes of T.S. Eliot and Ezra Pound—figures Bar­bara has only encoun­tered in text­books. Though hon­ored to have received an invi­ta­tion from Olivia after sub­mit­ting a poem, Bar­bara can’t shake the creep­ing self-doubt that whis­pers she is unwor­thy of this meet­ing.

When she steps inside, she is struck by the con­trast of Olivia’s mod­est Vic­to­ri­an home and the larg­er-than-life rep­u­ta­tion she car­ries. Instead of the somber, anti­quat­ed atmos­phere Bar­bara expect­ed, the house feels lived in, even slight­ly mod­ern­ized, with a large-screen TV tak­ing up space in the sparse­ly fur­nished liv­ing room. Olivia, though a cen­te­nar­i­an, car­ries her­self with an ener­gy that con­tra­dicts her age, issu­ing com­mands to her assis­tant Marie with a mix­ture of author­i­ty and famil­iar­i­ty. Marie, atten­tive and patient, man­ages the house­hold with an ease that sug­gests a deep under­stand­ing of Olivia’s tem­pera­ment. The lack of pre­ten­sion in Olivia’s demeanor sur­pris­es Bar­bara, who had braced her­self for the intim­i­dat­ing pres­ence of a lit­er­ary giant, only to be met with an invi­ta­tion for con­ver­sa­tion as equals.

Their dis­cus­sion starts on a per­son­al note before shift­ing toward Barbara’s poet­ry, a sub­ject that both excites and unnerves her. Olivia’s ques­tions cut through Barbara’s rehearsed respons­es, press­ing her to artic­u­late the true rea­son she writes—not for aca­d­e­m­ic praise or struc­tured form, but to make sense of the chaos with­in her own thoughts. She lis­tens as Olivia cri­tiques the rigid­i­ty of aca­d­e­m­ic poet­ry, encour­ag­ing Bar­bara to resist con­form­ing to insti­tu­tion­al expec­ta­tions and instead embrace the nat­ur­al rhythm of her own voice. Bar­bara, hav­ing only expe­ri­enced struc­tured cri­tiques in a class­room set­ting, finds this per­spec­tive both refresh­ing and lib­er­at­ing.

As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Olivia extends an unex­pect­ed yet life-chang­ing offer: reg­u­lar men­tor­ship ses­sions, an oppor­tu­ni­ty Bar­bara nev­er imag­ined pos­si­ble. The offer comes with a warn­ing, however—Olivia makes her dis­dain for Emi­ly Har­ris, anoth­er pro­fes­sor who had tak­en an inter­est in Barbara’s work, abun­dant­ly clear. She cau­tions Bar­bara against falling into the trap of aca­d­e­m­ic val­i­da­tion, sub­tly imply­ing that some lit­er­ary schol­ars pri­or­i­tize con­trol over gen­uine artis­tic devel­op­ment. The dis­tinc­tion Olivia draws between men­tor­ship and author­i­ta­tive instruc­tion lingers in Barbara’s mind, forc­ing her to recon­sid­er the kind of guid­ance she tru­ly seeks.

The dis­cus­sion takes a sig­nif­i­cant turn when Olivia asks whether Barbara’s poet­ry is expect­ed to reflect “the Black expe­ri­ence,” a direct nod to Emi­ly Harris’s pre­vi­ous inquiries. The ques­tion catch­es Bar­bara off guard, forc­ing her to con­front the soci­etal expec­ta­tion that Black poets must cen­ter their work on race to be deemed rel­e­vant. Olivia’s tone car­ries nei­ther judg­ment nor con­de­scen­sion, only a desire for honesty—an insis­tence that Bar­bara writes what is true to her rather than what is expect­ed. In that moment, Bar­bara feels an unspo­ken under­stand­ing pass between them, an acknowl­edg­ment of the pres­sures placed upon artists of col­or in lit­er­ary spaces.

By the time the vis­it nears its end, Bar­bara feels an inter­nal shift—she is no longer the hes­i­tant, self-doubt­ing poet who had approached the house hours ear­li­er. Instead, she leaves with a renewed sense of pur­pose, car­ry­ing Olivia’s val­i­da­tion like a qui­et fire inside her. What had start­ed as an intim­i­dat­ing meet­ing has trans­formed into the foun­da­tion of a men­tor-pro­tégé rela­tion­ship, one that will shape Barbara’s artis­tic and per­son­al growth. As she steps back into the cold, her thoughts race with excite­ment, know­ing that this is only the begin­ning of a much larg­er jour­ney in poet­ry and self-dis­cov­ery.