But the hiding — the shame I built around the hiding — that cost me forty years.”

I have turned that over many times since, because there is a hard truth buried in it.

We tell ourselves that we honor the people who do brave things; we call them heroes, we hand them the word like a medal.

And Edith taught me that the word, given to a living person who still has to go on being a person, can be its own kind of cage.

A hero is not allowed to be ordinary anymore — not allowed to be tired, or vain, or private, or to simply want her own back to be her own business.