Pushed away: Jasper

It avoids the specific act of being counted on, giving no undertakings, making no declarations and keeping every arrangement provisional, so that closeness never reaches the point where somebody could be relied upon and fail. Mothering that delivered harm inside its assurances made a promise into the most dangerous object in the house, and the safest handling of a dangerous object is not to pick one up. What it asks for is one small commitment made out loud and kept where it can be seen.

I don't make promises. That way nobody gets to find out I broke one.

It echoes Gudrun, who married four times and said at the end that she had been worst to the one she loved the most. The form implies a task: to be ordinary toward the one it matters with.