Let her have her dignity.”

That is a very good sentence.

I have thought about it professionally, as a piece of construction, and it is the best thing my mother ever built.

Because it does three things at once.

It explains the absence.

It forbids the search.

And — this is the one — it makes continuing to look into an act of disrespect toward the person you are looking for.

It converted my love into the thing I had to suppress in order to be decent.