Not from me.

Not ever.” And Theo smiled, wide and bright and entirely unburdened, and said, “Okay!

I get it now!” and zoomed off down the hallway making engine sounds, a small boy who had learned, at five, a thing that some people never learn at all.

I have thought about that lesson often since — the good-secrets-and-bad-secrets lesson, the one Solomon and I both, in our separate conversations, made sure to teach him — because I have come to believe it is one of the most important things a parent can give a child, and one of the least often given.

We warn our children about strangers, about streets, about hot stoves.