And that is exactly what makes what my parents planned so chilling, because it did not present itself as cruelty.

It presented itself as responsibility, as prudent long-term planning, as the sensible arrangement of a difficult situation, all the language of reasonable people making reasonable provisions.

But underneath the gentle institutional words was a plan to remove my sister, a living, loving, joyful woman, from her family and her home and her freedom, and to place her somewhere out of the way, so that the rest of us could get on with our lives unencumbered by her.

That is the thing I have never been able to forgive, and I have stopped trying: that they dressed it up as care.