For a moment I couldn’t speak.

Over eleven years, I’d allowed the smallest domestic decisions to become Derek’s decisions.

He chose the vacations because he was busy.

He chose the bank because his accountant knew somebody.

He chose which relatives we saw on holidays because his client dinners were so difficult to rearrange.

Then there were the concessions too small to name: postponing my graduate course, declining a part-time position, allowing him to say that I didn’t need to understand financial paperwork because he would take care of it.

I had once mistaken those assurances for kindness.