And I understood, watching him lower himself back into his chair and reach again for his newspaper, that my father’s silence, which I had spent my whole life excusing as gentleness, as being caught in the middle, as not wanting to make things worse, was not gentleness at all.

It was a choice.

It had always been a choice.

And he had just, one more time, made it.

I had spent my entire life protecting my father from that understanding, and I want to be honest about that, because it was my own contribution to the machinery that trapped me.

For thirty-four years, I had constructed elaborate excuses for my father’s silence, and I had believed them, because believing them was easier than the alternative.

He couldn’t stand up to Mom, I told myself; she’s overwhelming, and he’s gentle, and he just wants peace.