She had spent the better part of two decades laying a foundation, patient as water wearing stone: the accident, the absorbed company, the grateful girl, the arranged nearness, the marriage, the seeded jealousy, the waiting.

She had played a game whose clock ran in years while I was still learning that a game was being played at all.

And I understood, tracing it, that this was exactly why she had almost won.

People imagine evil as something loud and sudden, a monster at the door.

But the evil that nearly buried me was quiet and long and wore good perfume and poured me tea.

It did not break into my life.