It arrives as love, and as family, and as reasonable requests, and it escalates so gradually that there is never a clear line to refuse at.

If, on our very first day, Bruno’s family had demanded my grandmother’s inheritance and beaten me for refusing, I would have walked out that night and never returned; anyone would have.

But that is not how it happened, because that is never how it happens.

It began with a mother-in-law’s opinions about my cooking, which seemed petty to make a fuss over.

It proceeded to a father-in-law’s gentle sermons about family generosity, which seemed ungracious to resist.