When I was pregnant, she criticized how I sat.

When Rosie came, she criticized how I held her, how long I nursed her, how I soothed her, as though a three-week-old’s crying were a verdict on my character.

And Brian, every single time, gave me the same words, worn smooth as a stone from handling: She doesn’t mean anything by it, Samantha.

That’s just how she is.

Don’t provoke her. I want to be fair to the woman I was, because I have judged her harshly since.

I stayed because I had a newborn and a husband without a job and nowhere obvious to go, and because the abuse was the kind that has no single moment you can point to, that accumulates in a thousand small deposits until one day you look up and cannot remember the last time you felt like a person in your own life.