They were trembling slightly, and I remembered teaching those fingers to tie shoelaces before school.
“I am trying to separate myself from humiliation,” I answered. “What happens between you and Anton is your choice.”
She shook her head, but not in denial exactly.
More like someone trying to shake off cold water.
“You make it sound easy.”
“It is not easy.”
“You think I don’t know how he can be?”
That sentence entered the room quietly, then filled it.
I did not speak.
I was afraid that if I moved too quickly, she would gather the sentence back and hide it.
Ira stared at the table, at the ring mark left by Anton’s unfinished tea that morning.
“He isn’t always like that,” she said.
I nodded.
That was the sentence every tired woman used when love and fear had become tangled.
“He can be kind when things are good. When bills are paid. When nobody contradicts him.”
Her voice was low, almost ashamed of its own honesty.
“Then when something goes wrong, everything becomes someone else’s fault.”
She touched the folded paper, smoothing its crease with her thumb.
“Sometimes mine.”
