“Mabel has not been well since her father died.

She’s grieving, she’s not sleeping, she’s been fragile for a long time.

And the truth — I’m sorry, Mabel, but they should hear it — the truth is that this is revenge.

Because I wanted a child, and she couldn’t give me one.”

He said it looking at me, and he said it to hurt me, and it did hurt, exactly where he aimed it, because he had spent six years learning precisely where I was softest and he had always been willing to press there when he needed something.

For one breath the old reflex rose in me, the instinct to flinch, to defend myself, to explain.