“I need to tell you the truth,” I said.

“The truth about Grace.

And the real reason I couldn’t do what you asked me to do, ten years ago.

It’s time you knew all of it.” I watched the words land on them, watched my father’s face do something complicated and frightened at the phrase the real reason, watched my mother’s hand press harder against her chest.

They had spent ten years, I would soon understand, each carrying their own piece of this, my father the threat and the terrible choice he had made, my mother the grief of a daughter lost and the dawning fear of what her husband had done.

They had not spoken of it, I think, not really, not in all that time.