She Turned On the Lights

And predators like the Pembrooks survive entirely on good people looking the other way.

I didn’t lose a husband that night — I found out in time I had never really had one.

And Yvaine didn’t destroy a family when she chose to speak.

That family had been hollowed out by greed long before either of us walked through the door.

She only turned on the lights.

I have thought a great deal, since, about that phrase, because Yvaine said it to me herself, months later, when the worst was over and we were sitting in her small bright apartment in Milwaukee.