Loving Your Child Is an Instinct; Shielding Him From the Consequences of What He Did to Another Human Being Is Something Else Entirely — I Learned the Difference at Sixty, at the Door of a Chicken Coop

Wasn’t it true I’d fought bitterly with my son over his handling of the ranch?

Yes.

Wasn’t it true I’d left the country resentful of him?

Yes.

So didn’t I have a motive to harm his reputation today?

I turned my head and looked directly at my son.

“If I wanted to harm him,” I said, “I would have made up a lie.

What he actually did to that girl is far worse than anything I could ever have invented.” And there was nothing the lawyer could do with that, because it was simply true, and the truth, once it is finally spoken in the right room, has a weight that no cleverness can lift.