What I had, about that door, was something a little more brittle: a determined incuriosity, a decision not just to leave the door alone but to leave the whole question of Jacqueline’s inner life alone, to keep her at the pleasant, manageable distance of a good houseguest rather than let her become a person I actually knew.

And the proof that my incuriosity was brittle rather than generous is precisely that it shattered the instant I had a reason, and shattered in the ugliest possible direction.

A generous not-knowing would have met the discovery with curiosity.

My brittle not-knowing met it with panic.

There is a lesson in the difference, and I have tried to take it to heart.

I had followed that rule to the letter for six months, and I had felt genuinely proud of myself for it, right up until the moment my pride collided with a stubborn fitted sheet.