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He is being honest, she realises, and she can handle his fear of the deep, she can work with it. But in the same letter he writes something else, an issue she has suspected in him, but hoped wasn’t there, something she might not be able to live with. Uptown girl meets underdog, he writes. Uptown gi…

‘You’ve taken everything from me,’ her husband says to her.

The aftermath, the shame and the fear, it is degrading.

Choose him again, Ida. It’s the only option. Or go.

Say yes to him again and stay with him. Or go.

She doesn’t love him, and now she knows what love is.

So she h…

She runs to her own room and she never sees him again, besides, he is married as most of them are. Ida, that’s enough! Ida, you have to stop now! Where is your self-respect, Ida? You have to do something, take action. Who am I, we ask ourselves, if you respond timidly, you will have a different lif…

He writes in a measured letter to Ida that he doesn’t have to explain himself to her. Yes, I went to a party and no, I didn’t go home alone, he writes so she can really imagine it for herself. Besides, my student is a grown-up, he writes, she is thirty-four years old. It is not what Ida thinks. Ida…

He saved her. It is true though he doesn’t know it and she is grateful for that. He led her into the world, into the daylight. Coffee in the morning and a child who needs looking after. Grounded her. So she survived. She said yes to him in order to survive. Because he smiles, is easy-going, doesn’t…