“I had a really bad marriage,” Marie said, “and I don’t know if I’m capable of being in a relationship – with anybody.”

“Was he violent?” Herrick asked.

“Not really. Not until I tried to leave him.”

“So was he was controlling?”

“Yeah, that’s an understatement."

But she stopped there. He didn't know if he ought to keep asking questions. He didn't want to upset her. So he merely waited for her to speak, ready to change the subject if she wanted to.

"So...." she said, with a deep sigh, "You know that I'm headstrong. I have to do things my way. I don't understand why a control freak would be attracted to me."

Herrick said, "Because you're a challenge."

"Is that it? I've been worried that I'm unintentionally sending out some kind of message, on some frequency that only control freaks tune in to."

Herrick shook his head.

Marie looked out the window, and began, "The first year of our relationship was good. But looking back, now, I can see how he very subtly divided me from everyone I was close to. Lindsey - my daughter - was away at college. He kept telling me I shouldn't visit her, because if I did, she would never adjust, never make a new home for herself. And I didn't want to "stunt her, emotionally"."

"He said that? You didn't recognize that he was manipulating you?"

"It wasn't so different from what my friends and coworkers were saying. I was really over involved in Lindsey's life. I was so bereft when she left for college! If she didn't call me every night at ten, on the dot, I'd start to panic. I'd imagine she was dead in a ditch somewhere."

"And he used your maternal concern against you. He made it seem toxic."

"Yeah. I guess that's exactly what he did. And he did something similar with Belinda. Belinda is fucked up beyond belief - you wouldn't recognize her. Drugs have really kicked her ass. But she's still my best friend. I still love her, and deep down, she loves me. I didn't hear from her for about six months. I just assumed that she was in rehab. But it turns out that he told her not to call me anymore. He said that caring for her was draining me and zapping all of my life energy, and if she really cared about me, she'd stop inflicting herself on me."

"I see. What he said wasn't completely untrue. It was true enough that she believed him."

".I wasn’t allowed to leave the house without him, except to go to work. And he used to turn up at my workplace, unannounced, to make sure I was there. Of course, he’d always have flowers or pizza or a greeting card, to make it seem less like stalking. He used to call me five times a day, until finally my boss told me that if I took any more personal calls that weren’t emergencies, she was going to fire me. So, then he put a tracker on my cell phone, in case I got kidnapped and put in a trunk, the police would be able to find me.“

“I’m assuming he wasn’t obviously crazy when you first met him.”

“No. He seemed nice and normal. Well-adjusted. He had really good manners. I had friends who thought he was a real catch.”

“Why didn’t you leave?”

“I felt sorry for him.”

“Then how did you get away from him?”

“My dad got sick. And Ted tried to keep me from visiting him in the hospital. I went anyway – and when I got home, Ted had “fallen” off the roof. Just doing some impromptu roofing in the dark. That’s when I stopped feeling sorry for him. I dropped him off at the emergency room and I went home and packed my things and I left.”

Herrick nodded, and said, “Now it all makes sense.”

“What does?”

“Your extreme self-sufficiency.”