“Because husbands are always supposed to choose their wives first.”

I understood, then, the shape of the whole thing, the way you understand a plan of attack the moment the last piece of intelligence clicks into place.

Brenda had not simply hidden my daughter for an afternoon.

She had spent who knew how long teaching my daughter, in advance, to accept as normal the thing that was about to be done to her, teaching her to expect that her own father would abandon her, that once the ring was on, I would side with the new wife and push the old family into the shadows, and that this was simply how the world worked.

I reached over and set the fallen basket upright, and I gathered the crushed petals, and I stood, and I held out my hand.