He learned to distinguish those answers too.

Once, he said, “I don’t know how to talk about this without sounding like I’m making excuses.”

“Then tell me what happened.

We can discuss what you did separately.”

The conversation was imperfect.

It was still a conversation.

I told him more about my childhood, including the part I had rarely admitted: that refusing to ask questions had become my way of proving I was not like my mother when she was frightened.

“I thought trusting someone meant not looking too hard,” I said.