She was trying, clumsily and fearfully, to understand what kind of danger her child was in, so that she could do something about it.

I could not have seen that then, wounded as I was.

I can see it now.

I looked at my mother’s frightened, angry face, and I wanted more than anything to explain, to lay the whole impossible thing out in front of them so they would understand.

But I could not.

Not then.

Not with what I knew, and what I feared, and what I had promised.

“It’s complicated,” I whispered.