Arthur acted; Eleanor merely failed to act.

Arthur opened the door and pushed a child out; Eleanor only declined to open it again.

In the moral accounting of the world, we often treat these as different in kind, the sin of commission and the sin of omission, the one who does harm and the one who merely permits it.

But standing in that hallway, I found that the distinction dissolved almost entirely, because the result was identical.

A child was in the storm, and each of them, in their own way, kept him there.