Because I was not silent because I was beaten.

I was silent because I was already, behind that stillness, beginning to plan.

There is a kind of silence civilians never learn to read, and the Langfords could not read it because they had never been anywhere it was spoken.

In their world, power was loud — it was the raised voice, the invoked name, the threat of the reporter who owed a favor, the lawyer who would bury you in paper.

They understood the person who shouts.

They had no framework at all for the person who goes quiet.