“Because of one request?”

“Because when I asked you to withdraw it, you kept making it.”

He stared at me.

I wanted to list every other occasion.

I wanted to show him that I could still remember the dinner where Margaret said I was lucky to have a husband who provided so well, the holiday when he corrected my answer about my work, the time he told me to let his mother’s comments pass because everyone was tired.

But a list would have given him twenty smaller arguments to make instead of one thing to understand.