Brenda had begun, about six months earlier, quietly removing Rebecca’s photographs from the main rooms of the house, and telling Hannah that seeing her mother’s face all the time made me sad and depressed, and that keeping quiet about her mother was the kindest thing she could do for me.

She had used my deployments and my long training missions as lessons, proof, she told my daughter, that adult responsibilities simply mattered more than a child’s feelings.

Whenever Hannah questioned any of the wedding plans, Brenda had told her she was being selfish, demanding too much attention.

And worst of all, she had warned my daughter, again and again, that if she ever complained to me about any of it, the stress would be so much that I would call off the wedding and spend the rest of my life lonely and miserable, and that it would be Hannah’s fault.

My little girl had come to believe, in her nine-year-old heart, that silently enduring this woman’s cruelty was the only way to protect her father’s happiness.