There was a long, uncomfortable silence on the line.

“There were,” Gail said finally, choosing her words with care, “decisions made among the adults involved, at the time of the separation.

Before my involvement.

I recognized the sentence for what it was — the particular passive language institutions reach for when a human being needs to be protected from a decision no single person will admit to having made.

Decisions were made.

Not I decided, not she decided, not anyone decided, just decisions, arriving from nowhere, authored by the fog of policy.