I told Rosie about Helena's call on Saturday morning.
Not everything. The shape of it. A woman in Singapore who had called without asking permission and had given me information she thought I deserved. A grandmother learning her grandchild's name over the phone on a Friday evening.
Rosie listened in the way she listened, with full attention and no visible reaction until she had the complete picture.
Then she said: "She called because she felt guilty."
"Maybe," I said. "Or because she meant what she said."
"Both can be true," Rosie said. She refilled her coffee. "Guilt does not make the thing said untrue. It just means there is an additional reason for saying it."
I thought about this.
"She said he learned that love and control were the same thing," I said. "That keeping everything o
