Oliver Vance surrendered his law license rather than face the full ethics proceedings, which is to say he chose the one exit that let him avoid saying the whole thing out loud again, in a room with a stenographer.

I did not mourn his career.

He had needed to make one phone call in six years, and he had decided it was easier not to, and a great deal of my sons’ childhood was the price of that ease.

Chapter 18 — Forgiveness and Access Are Not the Same

My mother did not go quietly, of course.

Women like my mother never believe, until the very end and sometimes not even then, that the rules have finally reached them.