He Demanded I Apologize To His Mother Until The Door Opened

were hurting me. He had been relying on that certainty for longer than I understood, longer than I was willing to see. It had not been a guarantee he extracted from me by force. I had handed it to him gradually, in small increments, across a long time.

Sometimes I still think about that table at noon. Set with the good plates and the cloth napkins and continue reading …