I picked Nadia up from her school in Chestnut Hill and said nothing of any of it.

She was five; all she wanted to know was whether her father would be home for dinner, and I told her he was busy.

It was the last lie I would ever tell to protect his image.

I want to mark that, because it was a real turning, and I felt it turn even as I said it.

For years, without ever deciding to, I had become the curator of Barrett’s reputation inside our own home — the one who explained his absences to our daughter, who smoothed his coldness into busyness, who translated his neglect into a language a child could hear without being hurt by it. Daddy’s working.

Daddy’s tired.