Neither of them had done the hard thing when the hard thing was smallest.

And the cost of that shared failure of nerve, the failure to face an unbearable truth while it was still merely painful, was five years of four children’s lives, lived without a father who did not even know to grieve their absence.

Chapter 14 — Three Mistakes

When Alex recounted his mother’s confession to Elena, she felt no sense of victory.

She had wanted, once, to be proven right, to be vindicated, to watch Beatrice fall.