I took a long moment on that one, because the honest answer was complicated.

There had been no physical violence before that night. There had been two years of something else growing in the house.

Samantha had turned bitter after my command promotion. She made remarks about my career, called my deployments an excuse to play hero somewhere else. Gertrude complained that Chloe was too attached to me, that the girl was disobedient around strong women, that she acted too much like her father.

The sisters mocked Chloe for being quiet, for liking science, for asking me to teach her chess.

I had noticed. I had intervened every time. The previous year, at a holiday dinner, I’d barred Gertrude from staying in our home after I caught her slapping Chloe’s hand hard enough to leave a mark, because the child had spilled juice on the table.

Samantha had called me overbearing and paranoid for drawing that line.