You did not cause anything tonight.

Not one thing.

Your father made his own choices, over a very long time, and those choices had consequences, and the consequences arrived tonight.

That is not the same as you causing them.

Do you understand the difference?” He nodded against my shoulder, but I was not sure he did, not yet, so I said the rest of it.

“And I need you to hear this part most of all.

It was never your job to solve this.