The first lines were familiar.

She had written about a household that could look orderly from the outside while a broken pipe slowly damaged the floor beneath it.

She had said she was afraid the conflict between Robert’s family and hers would reach me before I was old enough to understand it.

I read the paragraph twice.

Then I reached the last lines.

She had not told me where Robert was because she feared the people who once tried to decide their lives for them would do the same to me.

She thought silence would give me room to grow.