His wife was crushing my wrist and he was watching.

And yet the sentence was designed, whether he planned it or simply reached for it by instinct, to plant the idea that I was the problem, that my resistance was the trouble, that if I would only stop fighting, stop making things difficult, none of this would be necessary.

It is the oldest move there is, and it works on the victim more than on any audience, because when you hear it often enough, from someone you love, you begin, against all reason, to wonder if it might be true.

Hearing it in that courtroom, with the judge listening, I felt something in me finally refuse it completely.