He could dominate a conversation.

He could interrupt, and raise his voice, and twist your own words back at you until you doubted your memory of what you’d said thirty seconds earlier.

He could make you feel insane for being right.

In an argument, Gerald Baldwin was undefeated, and he knew it, and he’d built his whole life on the strength of it.

Miriam Whitlock did not argue.

Miriam dealt in things that did not care how loudly my father could yell.