The selfishness. Any time Hannah expressed a preference about the wedding — where she’d stand, what she’d wear, whether her aunt could sit next to her — Pamela had used a specific word.

She had told her that it was selfish, and that everybody was working very hard, and that Hannah wanted everything to be about her.

And the last one. The one that made me have to leave a therapist’s office and stand in a stairwell.

Pamela had told her that if she said any of this to me, I would call off the wedding.

And that I would be alone, afterward, for the rest of my life.

And that it would be because of her.