At first, I thought it was sweet.

It took me nearly two years to realize it wasn’t really kindness.

It was fear.

During our eight years of marriage, I watched Owen accept the wrong drive-through order more times than I could count.

He paid for an unnecessary car repair rather than challenge the mechanic.

He loaned his sister Lisa two thousand dollars even though both of us knew she probably wouldn’t repay it.

When our neighbor built a fence several feet onto our property, Owen looked at it and said,

“Well… at least it’s a nice fence.”

When his boss promoted someone with six months of experience instead of Owen, who had been doing the job for years, he said,

“Maybe the guy needed the opportunity more.”

Whenever someone raised their voice, Owen became quiet.

His shoulders stiffened.

His thumb rubbed repeatedly against the side of his finger.

One night, I finally asked him about it.

“Why do you let people walk over you?”

He stared at the ceiling.

“Because the alternative is worse.”

“What alternative?”

He looked at me.

For a moment, I saw something old and frightened behind his eyes.

“Becoming my father.”

Then he rolled over and turned off the light.

I had met his father, Frank, only a handful of times before Owen and I married.

Frank was a large man.

Louder than everyone around him.

His temper could change the atmosphere of a room instantly.

At one barbecue, he shouted at a grill because the charcoal wouldn’t light.

At a restaurant, he berated a waitress because his coffee wasn’t hot enough.

Another time, he yelled at Owen’s mother because she had parked too close to the curb.

At our engagement party, he drank too much and spent part of the evening angrily arguing about politics with nobody in particular.

Afterward, Owen drove home in silence.

Finally he said,

“He wasn’t always this bad.”

I looked at him.

“No?”

His hands tightened around the steering wheel.

“No.”

A pause.

“He used to be worse.”

Four years ago, Owen’s mother died suddenly after a stroke.