When I brought Flynn to meet him, my grandfather was kind and gracious, and afterward took my hands in his and said, in his gentle way, that Flynn was a very impressive young man and that impressive young men were exactly the ones you had to protect yourself against.

I was in love and I was insulted on Flynn’s behalf and I told my grandfather so.

He only smiled and said he hoped to be proven a foolish old man, and that if he was, no harm would ever come of the clause and I need never think of it again.

He would rather build a shield I never needed, he told me, than fail to build the one I did.

He died two years before the twins were born.