That is the sentence I was waiting for.

I gave him every second of silence he needed to say it.

He did not say it.

He stood there and stared down at the floor tiles, at the flecked gray hospital linoleum, and he would not lift his eyes to meet mine.

That silence, his silence, hurt me more than anything his mother had said out loud or would say.

Brenda was Brenda; her cruelty at least had the honesty of being direct.