That it was only an hour, twice a week.

That she would never know the difference, that in her state one visitor was as good as another, that I might even be doing a small kindness by keeping a lonely woman company, whatever the reason.

Every one of those thoughts was a way of not looking directly at the thing I had agreed to, and I knew it even as I thought them.

There is a particular exhaustion that comes from lying to yourself while you are on your way to lie to someone else, and I felt all of it on that drive home.