“And I need you not to say a word to Vaughan.”

My sister has known me our whole lives.

She didn’t ask why.

She said, “Bring her tonight,” and then, after a pause, “Whatever you’re about to do — do it with your head, not your heart.” I told her I intended to do it with both, in that order.

The thing I was most careful about, in all of it, was Anwen.

She is ten years old and she misses nothing, and I was determined that whatever her father had made of our marriage, he would not also get to make it the center of her childhood.