And that is far more frightening than a nervous liar, because a nervous liar can be reasoned with, appealed to, reached — there is still a conscience in there to address.

A comfortable one cannot, because there is no longer anyone home behind the ease.

I had been married, I understood that night, not to a man wrestling with a wrong, but to a man who had quietly ceased to experience it as one.

There is no negotiating with that.

There is only getting yourself, and your child, safely to the other side of it.

Chapter 6 — Three Adults