I saw it happen in Gavin.

And I felt, underneath my calm, an odd flicker of something almost like relief, because a man who has resorted to threats has, without knowing it, told you that he has run out of better options.

He threatens because he has nothing left that works.

My mother had experienced Gavin’s threats as the beginning of the worst; I understood them, with my particular history, as the beginning of his end.

He just did not know it yet.