But she understood, in that moment, that she had just taken something away from Soledad — and that Soledad was afraid, not of losing her pride, but of what would happen to her now that it was gone.

Inmaculada lay awake a long time that night turning that look over in her mind.

Fear is a specific thing, and she had spent enough years shepherding frightened women to know its varieties — the fear of shame, the fear of punishment, the fear of God.

What she had seen on Soledad’s face was none of those.

It was the fear of a person who has been told, by someone with power over them, exactly what will happen if a certain thing is not done — and who has just been ordered, by their Mother Superior, to stop doing it.

Soledad had not looked afraid of Inmaculada.