On the armchair lay an old doily that she fiddled with as she spoke. “I remember the day clearly, the day I stopped caring what Joseph thought. It was such freedom, such a marked day for me. I realized that I didn’t need to explain myself to him, didn’t need him to understand how he wronged me.”
She stopped to give her next words some thought, “When the day comes,” said Eleanor, clear and succinct, “that you do not care what someone thinks of you, that is the day you’re free of them.”
Eleanor in Caring for Eleanor