His eyes dropped to the cut edge of my sweater.
“She is still my mother.”
“And I am still your wife.”
He flinched, but I was past protecting him from sentences he had earned.
Graham sat in the chair by the window and pressed his palms together.
He told me his mother had always been difficult.
That was the word he used.
Difficult.
As if Judith had forgotten birthdays, criticized recipes, or arrived late to dinner.
He talked about how she could freeze him out for weeks when he challenged her and how his father had taught him to apologize before anyone had even decided what he had done wrong.
I knew some of that history.
I had watched Judith punish him with silence, tears, and sudden illnesses whenever he set a boundary.
But knowing where his fear came from did not make it safe for me to live inside it.
