There was a thin line between civility and cruelty in him, between what did and did not set him off. I knew he wouldn’t like the idea of the shrimp; I also knew it would pass. But we’d forgotten to warn Sarah. “I’ll have the hamburger,” she said, too loud. I wanted to muffle her to protect her, and to protect myself. The trick, I learned later, was to give him less surface area to knife, so he would stab someone else. Always someone, if not me.
