If he had only ever been generous, there would have been nothing to escape.

It is the alternation that does the damage, the gift arriving on the heel of the injury, each one calling the other a liar, until a woman cannot say with confidence whether she lives with a cruel man or a kind one, and in that confusion she stops trying to decide and simply tries to survive the weather.

The ledger was my defense against exactly that.

A notebook does not get confused.