She had done none of it.

She had worked, and watched, and waited, and protected her son, and kept her enormous secret, out of a caution that the night had just proven justified.

And before she answered his next question, Daniel sat for a moment with the shame of how little he had seen, because it went beyond this one woman.

He had prided himself, in a vague way, on being a decent employer; he paid well, he was never cruel.

And he understood now that decency of that kind was almost meaningless, a courtesy extended to people he had never actually perceived as people.