He was issuing an invitation, to a specific kind of fight, on ground he had chosen and controlled: the fight of the wounded, screaming, hysterical daughter, the scene, the breakdown, the drama.

That fight he could win, because he had spent thirty-two years training everyone in that room, including me, to see any emotional response from me as proof of my instability.

If I had screamed at him, thrown wine back, wept, made the scene he was inviting, I would have handed him exactly the victory he wanted: the confirmation of the story that I was the unstable, difficult, dramatic one, and he the long-suffering father merely pushed too far.

The invitation to fight on his terms was itself the trap.