This time she did not argue. Not simply because deep down she wanted to trust that he was right about how things would work out between her daughter and herself. But rather, because Eleanor knew Alfred was not the sort of person who sugarcoated things.

She knows him, she remembers a much more pessimistic man, but one who always spoke with honesty. His hair might have changed, not raven and without that curl she liked to play with as they laid together. But this is the same Alfred as always.

"If I get out of here," she reminds him.