My nervousness, which he had held and soothed a dozen times, was a lever.

My longing to give my children a stable home, which he had sworn he shared, was a lever.

He was not describing a woman he loved.

He was describing a mark he was about to close.

And he was describing her to his mother, who had asked, before anything else, whether he had gotten her to sign.

I need to sit for a moment on the particular cruelty of especially because of those kids, because it is the phrase that has stayed with me longest, longer even than she makes my skin crawl. Because what he was saying, in that easy, offhand way, was that my children were not merely baggage he tolerated — they were the very tool he used against me.

He had understood, correctly, that a woman raising three children alone, a woman who had lost her sister and taken in her sister’s twins, is a woman with a particular vulnerability: a bottomless need to make her children safe, a hunger for security that runs so deep it can override caution, even instinct.