“First she’ll ask nicely.

Then she’ll call you ungrateful.

Then she’ll try to frighten you.

Don’t believe a word of it.” I had squeezed his hand and told him not to spend his strength worrying about me.

He had smiled, the tired private smile I had loved my whole life, and said, I’m not worried about you.

I’m worried about her, because she has never once in her life met someone she couldn’t talk out of the truth, and she’s about to.

He told me other things that afternoon, in the same low, unhurried voice, and I understood only later that he was not confessing so much as filing a report.