“That’s because fine is easier for her than honest,” Leah said.
Trevor was quiet for a moment. “He talks to her like that sometimes too.”
Leah closed her eyes.
Of course he did.
She had known it in the abstract way you know things you haven’t assembled into a full picture. The brightness Denise performed around Raymond, the way she monitored other people’s reactions before permitting herself one — these were not the behaviors of a woman in an equal marriage. They were the behaviors of a woman who had learned to occupy very little space and call it contentment. Denise had not only failed to protect her daughter. She had been diminishing herself in the same direction, by degrees, and Leah had been an easier target because she and Denise occupied the same category in Raymond’s estimation: people whose inner lives he had decided not to engage with.
The realization didn’t excuse Denise. But it reshaped the hurt.
Three days later, Denise came to Leah’s apartment.
She had come alone. She looked older without the performance she maintained in company — the careful brightness gone, replaced by something that had not slept well and knew it.
Leah let her in, though every instinct said to wait.