And the worst part, the part that shames me still, is that he was not wrong.

I had been standing alone.

I had trained him to see it by living it in front of him for years, absorbing Eleanor’s cruelties and Joe’s neglect in silence, teaching my son by daily example that this was what a woman did, that she endured, that she smoothed things over, that she did not make trouble.

I thought I was protecting him from conflict.

What I was actually doing was raising a boy who believed that love meant watching someone you care about get hurt and having to be the one to jump in front of it.