But I have come to believe that this is often how it works: that the small courage to protect your own, done honestly and all the way, tends to protect people you’ll never meet.

The grand family name Mildred had guarded so fiercely against my “common” one became, for a season, the thing people whispered about at their clubs.

Anton filed for divorce from Roxanne within three months, once the money was gone.

I felt no thrill watching any of it.

It was not something I did to them.

It was the shape of what they were, finally made visible, and I had only stopped being the wall that hid it.