When Luca struck me on our wedding night and told me to know my place, he thought he was teaching me a lesson about who held the power in that family.

He did teach me a lesson, though not the one he intended.

He taught me that the people who tell you to know your place are always, without exception, afraid of what you might do if you ever realized you had never needed their permission to occupy it.

I never needed his permission to take up space in this world, or Patricia’s husband’s, or any man’s.

Neither did she.