It has never gone away.

But it hardened.

The love I bore my son, which Julian had mistaken for my fatal weakness, rose up in me instead as something else entirely, something with an edge — and the woman reading those emails was no longer interested in weeping.

She was interested in justice.

And she had, it turned out, quite a lot of strength left with which to demand it.

I want to say more about this, because it is the truest thing I learned in the whole ordeal, and because I think it is a thing our culture profoundly misunderstands, to the great advantage of the Julians of the world.