“When you’re poor . . . you can be incredibly practical. By the time I was eight years old, I was paying our electrical bill. I understood a lot of awful things that no child should understand. And yet . . . I lived in a fantasy world, too. I had to create these dreams for myself. Possible futures I might have someday. If I won the lottery. If I became a famous actress—never mind that I was horribly shy. If I won a trip to Paris somehow . . .

“So when I left work the next night and Ellis was waiting for me . . . I finally felt special. And chosen. As if fate had noticed me at last.

“He was so kind to me at first. He bought me gifts, and my siblings, too. Never asking anything in return. He never laid a hand on me. I almost imagined at first that he might want to adopt me, like Daddy Warbucks in Annie . . .

“Of course, that was innocent in a way that I should not have been innocent, since I knew better by then what men want from girls. I was a virgin, but only thanks to several narrow escapes.

“Eventually, Ellis did expect favors back from me. But by that point, I was so deeply in debt to him . . . thousands of dollars in gifts and dinners and even cash . . . I felt like I had to give him whatever he wanted.

“Looking back on it now, he probably spent less than three thousand on me. Which seemed like all the money in the world. Now I think how cheap I sold myself to him.”

I can’t keep quiet at that. I say, “You were a child. And you were desperate. You didn’t sell yourself. That implies that you made a choice.”

Celia sighs. “I saw the path I was on. And I never tried to leave it. I knew about birth control . . . he refused to use it. I continued on anyway. And of course I was soon pregnant. Pregnant with Raylan.

“Ellis proposed. I accepted. Though even as he slipped the shiny ring on my finger, I didn’t feel excitement. I knew I was trapped. No going back.

“The cracks in his kindness had already started to show. I knew I was never allowed to say no to him—not about anything. If he ordered dinner for me, and I wanted pasta instead of steak, I never spoke up. If I did, he’d punish me later. Not in an obvious way. But with something subtle—like closing the car door on my hand ‘accidentally.’ Or forcing me to miss my sister’s school play.

“The first time he slapped me was over something so small . . . I was carrying a pitcher of lemonade out to his deck. He had a massive house out in the middle of nowhere. I had only visited it a few times then. I tripped over the ledge leading down from the kitchen to the deck. I dropped the pitcher and it shattered, spilling lemonade everywhere.