No parent wants to know that about their child.

Most cannot bear to, and so they leave everything to the child anyway, and hope.

Mr.

Christopher did not look away.

He saw plainly what his son was, and he grieved it — I am sure he grieved it terribly — and then he did the hard, loving, responsible thing, which was to build a structure that would protect the innocent from his son’s nature rather than pretend that nature away.

And at the same time, he had to see me clearly too — to understand that eighteen years of quiet, unremarked loyalty were real, and had value, and deserved to be honored rather than simply spent.