Not because it would have hurt you.

Not because I thought it was too late.

Because by then I would have hated her.

Seven years of a grandson’s life, weighed against a woman’s fear of a bad afternoon, and the afternoon lost.

I did not shout.

I did not say anything cruel and I did not say anything final, and there was no scene, and eleven people in the next room ate a ham and never knew.

What I said, standing up, was: