It was another thing entirely to hand a woman the estate’s books because you assumed she could read them better than you, to implement her recommendations without softening them, to correct a manager who spoke to her dismissively without being asked to.

He did not treat her competence as a pleasant surprise or a brave recovery.

He treated it as ordinary — as simply the competence of a capable person who had been prevented, for a decade, from using it.

That was the deepest kindness of all, and he did not even seem to know he was doing it: he declined to be impressed that she was sane and able, because to him it had never been in question.

After ten years of having her every clear thought treated as a symptom, being regarded as merely, unremarkably competent felt to Cosima like being handed back her own mind.

Chapter 9 — Mutual Respect