When he overspent, I quietly moved money to cover it and said nothing, to keep the peace.

When he was cruel to a waiter, or a friend, or me, I smoothed it over afterward, apologized on his behalf, softened his edges for the world so the world would keep liking him.

I had spent our whole marriage standing between Rowan and the natural consequences of being Rowan, and I had mistaken it for love, the way a great many women are taught to mistake it for love.

Priscilla had done the same thing for forty years, on a grander scale, and produced the man who left me in a doorway.