She nodded slowly.
“What would you need?” she asked. “To know.”
I looked at the vineyard.
“I would need to understand what kind of marriage you are choosing,” I said. “Not whether Greg makes good money or has opinions about landscaping. Whether you are choosing a life in which your mother has a place. Whether when someone is dismissive of me, you will say something. Not for me. For yourself. Because a person who allows cruelty toward someone they love is practicing something, and what you practice becomes what you are.”
Samantha looked at the vines for a long time.
“I laughed,” she said. “When he said the thing about the landscaper. I laughed because I didn’t know what else to do and I thought if I laughed it would be less.”
“Less what?”
“Less mean.” She pressed her lips together. “It wasn’t.”
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t.”
