It has kept more truths buried than any lie ever did.

Damon was counting on it — counting on the fact that decent people do not cause scenes at funerals, that I would weigh my dignity against my daughter and choose my dignity, the way I was raised to.

He had built his whole plan on the reliable social gravity that keeps grieving old women in their seats.

And the only thing that got me out of that chair, against all of it, was a truth simpler and older than any rule of decorum: that was my child in that box, and someone was about to burn away the last proof of what had been done to her, and there are things a mother will trade her dignity for without a half-second’s hesitation.

I stood up.