A family that requires a child to swallow what was done to him in order to preserve its image is not protecting the family.

It is protecting the abuser, and calling it family, and the two are not the same thing, and I will spend the rest of my life refusing to confuse them.

Chapter 26 — The Door I Opened Wide

Three months later, a letter arrived from Arthur.

He asked to see Lucas, just once, to apologize in person.

Julian brought it to our son, because we had agreed that this was Lucas’s decision to make and no one else’s.

This was, for both of us, a deliberate and considered choice, and I want to explain it, because I think it matters.