It was just us in that oversize house. No mourners, no police, no guests, no children, no housekeepers, no cleaners. I did wonder where Madelaine’s and Mick’s two children might be. You’d expect them to be home, for comfort, to mourn, to be reassured that their lives would somehow remain safe and secure, forty-eight hours after their father had died. But they weren’t. Where they might be and why didn’t come up in the conversation.

“This feels so good,” Madelaine said.

I should have held my tongue, but I said, “Your husband dead feels good?”

Elizabeth said, “You have to understand this.”

After a sudden pull from her drink, Madelaine said, “I know it sounds wrong. I’m not heartless. I’m a good person. Not a bad person.”

“If you were a woman, you’d understand,” Elizabeth said, stepping up to an invisible lectern, to lecture me, her class of one.

“Of course,” I said.

“Violence, violence is the essence. Force, force is the issue. We used to be called ‘the weaker sex.’ And most men are physically bigger than most women and physically stronger and more willing to be violent. That’s the foundation, the bottom line, of everything that keeps women down, that made us second-class citizens, chattel, lower versions of humanity.”

“It hurts,” Madelaine said plaintively. Having finished her drink, she wandered inside to replenish.

“Yes,” Elizabeth said. “It hurts. It creates pain. Women are maimed. Often physically. If not physically, emotionally. In terms of their self-esteem, their self-worth. Men don’t see women as people. They’re objects.”

“Hey,” I said. A minor defensive reflex.

“OK, most men,” Elizabeth said, dismissing it as a quibble. “Objects. Sometimes decorative. To show off. Trophy wives.”

Madelaine came back in time to hear that. She certainly didn’t seem offended. If anything, she stood up a little straighter, and her next few steps had a bit of strut in them.

“Sometimes as unpaid servants. Cook, clean, take care of the children, of his clothes, his schedule, his house, his lawn…”

I looked around. I was reasonably certain that Madelaine didn’t mow the lawn. Or clean the house, or cook, unless she chose to, or even do a lot of child care.