That distinction mattered to me more than almost anything I learned that year, because for two years I had been extending my husband the grace of the first category while he lived, in fact, in the second.

A coward, I had told myself, is a person too weak to do the right thing — a person who wants to protect his child but cannot summon the strength to stand up to his domineering mother.

And I had built two years of forgiveness on that story.

I had pitied Luca.

I had made excuses for him, the way you make excuses for someone whose failures come from weakness rather than malice, because weakness is sympathetic in a way that malice is not. He’s not a bad man, I had told myself, he’s just weak.

He loves Fiona; he just can’t stand up to Wendy. And not in front of everyone demolished that entire two-year story in five words.