“I’ve been frightened of that man for forty years!

You don’t know what it’s like!”

And the terrible thing was that I did, in a way, believe her.

I had watched Eleanor shrink and go silent whenever Arthur entered a room.

I had seen, over the years, the particular smallness of a woman who has spent a lifetime managing a domineering man, and I did not doubt that her fear was real.

But I had reached the end of what I was willing to let fear excuse.