“I did not plan it.

I prepared for it.” The distinction landed in me with real force, because I understood, in that moment, exactly what it meant.

A man who plans a scene wants it to happen.

A man who prepares for one is braced against a thing he has prayed will not come, but has finally accepted might.

Caleb had not been hoping his mother would humiliate his daughter so that he could spring some clever trap.

He had been hoping, against all his knowledge of her, that she would not.