When Molly started speaking, I started panicking, afraid I’d have to hear everything about her twice. I learned a couple of new things; she ran her own day spa, she’d been married three times. Her mother had been hooked on painkillers for most of Molly’s life, and after burning through several husbands and their bank accounts, she began relying on her only daughter for cash. Molly had been supporting her for over ten years. She told us about times when her mom was able to hold down a job, and how proud Molly was of her when she did. I felt a sharp tinge of empathy, the guilt and resentment both exceedingly familiar.

By four o’clock that afternoon, Greg had already spent three hours telling his story, about how his biological father had given full custody of Greg to his mother and her new husband when Greg was twelve, how the pain of feeling unwanted had led him to binge drinking and reckless sex with “cheerleader sluts” in high school, how being berated by his “bitch wife” led to opioids as a way to ease the sting of her insults, how heroin became a way to drown her out entirely. I stared at the clock as the minute hand eclipsed the hour hand for the third time and decided that only a white man would feel comfortable taking up so much space. I glanced around the room. No one else appeared to be bothered by it. In fact, they were asking follow-up questions and for clarification! I had to interject. “You’ve been talking for two hours longer than everyone else.”

He hunched forward, appearing to shrink. “Calm down, I’m almost done.”

I sensed I should’ve stopped there but something twitched inside me and I kept going. “And can you stop being so derogatory about women,” I felt heat rising up my neck, “and villainizing us?”

“I’m not talking about women, I’m talking about my wife.”

“Right, well, that distinction is irrelevant to me.”

“Jesus!” he muttered. “Thanks for your support!”

“I don’t support you.”

“I know,” he said, “I was being sarcastic.” By then his voice was quivering. For a second I was afraid he was going to cry. “What is the matter with you, anyway?”

Finally Richard jumped in. “All right, that’s enough for today.” As everyone got up to leave, Richard insisted Greg and I stay behind to talk about what happened. “So what was going on just now?” he asked me.

I told him I didn’t like the way Greg spoke about his wife.

“You’re offended by his use of profanity?”

“No, she isn’t offended by it,” Greg answered on my behalf. “She’s been running around calling me a ‘fucking pussy’!”