Aurora lost weight she couldn’t afford to lose.

She started wearing long sleeves in the dead of summer.

Elodie, who used to run through the apartment laughing, went silent whenever she heard her grandmother’s footsteps in the hall.

Whenever I asked if everything was all right, my mother answered before Aurora could open her mouth.

“Your wife is just fragile, Damon.

She doesn’t work outside the home and still she’s exhausted by the smallest thing.” And I — wanting to avoid a fight — always took the easiest, most comfortable explanation on offer.