We turned on the lights in a room that was already full of what it was full of.

The cockroaches did not appear because we flipped the switch; they had been there all along, in the dark, which is the only place they can live.

That is the whole truth of what happened, and it is the thing I most want anyone who reads this to understand: that speaking is not destroying.

The people who tell you that your truth will destroy the family are almost always the people who built the thing your truth would expose, and they are counting on your decency, your reluctance, your fear of being the one who caused the damage.

But you did not cause the damage.

They did.