“Is it still just a mistake,” she asked, “if you do it over and over?”

I chose my words the way you choose stones to cross a river.

“A person can make a bad choice once, Mira.

But when they do the same thing again and again, week after week, with every chance in the world to stop — that isn’t a mistake anymore.

It’s a decision.”

She thought about that with the whole seriousness of her small face, and I let her, because it was one of the most important things she would ever work out, and it was not mine to hurry.