Leo would grow up with a father who had done these things, and no settlement or ruling could change that, and there would be years ahead, I knew, when my son would have to work out for himself what to keep of Julian and what to set down.

I could not do that work for him, and I did not try to poison it, either.

I made a decision early that I would never make Leo choose between loving his father and loving me, that I would speak of Julian’s actions honestly when asked but never ask my son to hate the man who was half of where he came from.

That is a harder discipline than it sounds.