He knew the danger was gone.

And he refused to leave me alone in the world.”

I meant it, and I have gone on meaning it in all the time since, though I understand why she asks.

There is a version of kindness that is really only the avoidance of pain — the gentle lie left undisturbed, the hard truth swallowed to spare everyone the difficulty of it.

And I think, for most of those twenty-four years, that version of kindness was the right one; the truth would have endangered me, and so Clement kept it, and keeping it was an act of love.

But the danger did not last forever.