The affair, which had started all of this, turned out to be the least of it — a match that lit a fire far bigger than itself.

But it collapsed on its own, the way these things do once the lie stops protecting anyone.

Adaline came to me before I ever had to seek her out.

She arrived at my father’s estate gaunt and hollow-eyed, the performance entirely gone out of her, and she told me the truth in a flat, exhausted voice: that Desmond had pursued her, that she had been weak and wrong and knew it, and that she had realized too late she’d been a convenience to him — one more thing to use, discard, and blame.

I did not comfort her.

I am not a saint, and she had helped break something in my family that would not fully mend.