That the casserole and the folded laundry were things she did so that she could go home and feel like a good person, a kind person, generous even to poor tired Delaney, while the actual harm went on underneath.

There is a particular species of cruelty that dresses itself in kindness, that needs to be seen doing good precisely because it is doing so much wrong, and Renata was fluent in it.

At the time I took her warmth at face value and it undid me a little, that anyone was being soft with me.

Now I understand that the softness was the sharpest thing in the room.

She was not comforting me.