I grew up in the system, with no family of my own, and the one thing in this world I had always ached for and never had was exactly the thing you had — that deep, unbreakable bond between a grandfather and his grandson.

I could not be the one to end that man’s life.

I could not be the reason that bond became a grave.

So I signed the confession.

And I went to prison for a crime your aunt committed, to save a family that was not even mine.

I want to be honest about that decision, because in the years since, people who have heard my story have called it noble, and I am no longer sure that is the right word, and I have thought hard about what the right word is.