Trina made long visits to Maria during the morning in her dressing-gown and curl papers, and the two talked at great length over a cup of tea served on the edge of the sink or a corner of the laundry table.

The talk was all of their husbands and of what to do when they came home in aggressive moods.
"You never ought to fight um," advised Maria.

"It only makes um worse.
Just hump your back, and it's soonest over." They told each other of their husbands' brutalities, taking a strange sort of pride in recounting some particularly savage blow, each trying to make out that her own husband was the most cruel.

They critically compared each other's bruises, each one glad when she could exhibit the worst.

They exaggerated, they invented details, and, as if proud of their beatings, as if glorying in their husbands' mishandling, lied to each other, magnifying their own maltreatment.