Orin’s deposition to Steeply (p. 1041)
I never once saw the two of them fight, not once in eighteen domestic and Academy years, is all I’ll say.
Context
Orin will not talk about Himself's death or the Moms's stability on the record, but he lets one thing stand as symptom: in eighteen years he never once saw his parents fight. Delivered as evidence, not reassurance — the frictionless marriage read as the tell of something profoundly wrong, immediately followed by "The late Stork was the victim of the most monstrous practical joke ever played." The absence of visible conflict is the pathology: a marriage so sealed and managed that not one argument ever surfaced across two decades, which to the son who grew up inside it means the real business was all conducted underground. The never-fighting is the loudest thing the house ever did.