He said it was a pastime.”

I studied the photograph.

“Why tell me this now?”

“Because I believed him.

I repeated what he said when people asked about you.

I wasn’t the one who stole your work, but I helped make it easy for everyone to assume it wasn’t worth much.”

It was a strange kind of apology, without any demand that I soothe her discomfort.

She also remembered a disagreement between Ada and Malcolm about a proposed family policy requiring spouses to sign sweeping intellectual-property assignments.