“The law, perhaps, is going that way. My point is, even though it’s not uncommon, even though it’s still legal in many places … it’s not a … it’s not a tolerable state.”

“No,” Sam said. “Of course it’s not.”

Her throat closed up suddenly, and she looked away, trying to compose herself. He was threatening to shatter her walls with a handful of words and a tone in his voice, and she couldn’t allow it.

“I won’t go into the details,” she said, once she could trust her voice. “Suffice it to say, he enjoyed having me in his power, having me as … as an outlet. Even today I wonder if I had just gone along … if I had just stopped fighting…”

Sam reached across the table for her hands, but she moved them away. He let her, but he didn’t break his gaze. “There is nothing, nothing, you did to cause that,” he said. “Do you understand me? There is nothing anyone can do to deserve that kind of violence in return.”

She broke eye contact first, staring down at the table, at the smooth, dark wood that smelled like beeswax.

“How did you leave him?”

No one had ever asked her before. Her friends in Montmartre had met her after she had left, and they had simply taken her as she appeared. She suspected her friend Amelie had guessed something of the reality, but to the rest of them, it wouldn’t have mattered if every word printed in the papers were true. There were so many scandals there on the fringes of Paris, up that steep hill Haussmann’s grand improvements had been unable to climb, where the rent was cheap and there was dancing every night. She loved them for their incuriousness, their easy acceptance. It had been exactly what she needed, and after Alain had died it had allowed her time to heal. It had also allowed her to … not forget, but to bury.

“Alain’s mother died, four years into our marriage,” she said, the words pushing past her careful wall. “She was … The story was that she was an invalid and had a rare blood disease that kept her indoors. That made her bruise easily.”

She glanced quickly up at Sam, saw the understanding in his eyes, before looking down again. “I only met her once. She … fell. That’s what they said. She was weak, from her illness, and she fell, and hit her head.”

“She didn’t fall.”

“She didn’t fall,” Alva said, the sentence heavy in her throat. “Alain must have known. But … that was the story, and the story was all that mattered. Maybe he made himself believe it. Maybe he didn’t care. I don’t know.”