The door, the judge made clear, was closed.

Permanently.

I want to say one thing about that lock, the one installed on the outside of my daughter’s bedroom door, because of everything in the evidence it was the detail that ended any possibility of a defense, and it is worth understanding why.

A great many of Blake’s actions could be argued about, spun, reframed, given an innocent gloss by a clever lawyer.

An affair is not a crime.