“I don’t need everyone to blame the same person,” she said.

“I just want them to stop making decisions about me without asking.”

Her sentence silenced the room.

Later Gregory admitted that he had avoided discovering this very kind of painful, complicated truth.

“I thought if I didn’t open the box, the past would stay where it belonged.”

“The past doesn’t stay put,” I told him.

“It arrives through a toolbox on a Tuesday afternoon.”

He gave a brief, sorrowful smile.