She was ready, now, to be something better than good.

She was ready to be clear.

She had been thinking, in those days, about how many cages are built out of virtues, because hers had been, and she suspected she was not alone in it. A good wife. A good daughter. A good mother. Each of those phrases names something genuinely admirable, and each can be turned, in the wrong hands, into an instrument of control so effective precisely because it wears the face of a value you hold.

The trick is always the same.