But he disappeared before I could.” I did not say more than that.

I did not lay out for a ten-year-old the fear I carried about what disappeared truly meant, about a good young man who had made powerful people angry and was never seen again.

There would be a time for her to understand all of it, when she was older.

That afternoon, she needed only to know that her father had not chosen to be absent, that he had never known she existed, and that he had been a person worth being proud of.

Grace gave a single small nod, the nod of a child trying very hard to be older and steadier than her years, and it broke my heart and filled it at the same time.