She had used my own love as the lock on his cage — had counted on the fact that a grieving father visits a grave, and does not exhume it; mourns his child, and does not go searching the neighboring counties for him.

My devotion had been the perfect prison, and I had maintained it, faithfully, for seven years, believing it was the only thing I had left of him.

That was the cruelty I could not forgive, standing in the rain: not just that she stole my son, but that she made my love for him the very thing that kept us apart.

And that was also, I understood, the thing I was about to undo.