She reminded me that she’d once asked whether I felt heard during disagreements.

I had laughed and said every marriage involved compromise.

“Did you know something was wrong?” I asked.

“I knew you stopped finishing sentences when he entered a room.”

The answer wounded me because it was so ordinary.

There had been no single moment when Preston became frightening.

There were hundreds of little moments: correcting me at dinner, referring to decisions as ours when I had never been consulted, laughing when Lorraine mocked my work.

“I should have left sooner.”