My mother, Dellie, was a master of the white lie. My father, Murray, would tell you the truth if you asked for it, and sometimes simply because it occurred to him. (No woman ever asked him how she looked in a party dress. No one ever said to him, “Do you think I'm stupid?”) I have spent much of my adult life trying to split the difference and often failing. Instead, I am the kind of person who can decline your dinner invitation seamlessly and still blurt out an unpalatable truth at an inopportune moment. I hope my parents, watching from the heavens, are happy with this.

In my adult life, I tried to muzzle my inner Murray Bloom and became a master of the social lie, the complimentary lie and the I-would-love-to-go-out-with-you-again-but-I'm-moving-to-Burundi lie. It did not serve me well in my important relationships. I gave up on polite lies and tried silence, which seemed even more polite: forbearing, tactful silence. And I learned the hard way that it's a bad idea to be silent—or polite—about some things. A terrible temper, a cruel streak, a tendency to drink too much, a flirtation that embarrasses everyone except the flirt, a dead sex life, a depression like the Grand Canyon—about all of these, you have to speak up. Which brings us to the question of how we bring things up, which brings us to the underlying question of why we bring things up. Did you want to punish your spouse or alert him to the need for change? Is this—whether silence or sharing—a shot across the bow or the last straw? No matter what you believe about your own good intentions, when you tell people things they don't want to hear, it is never just because it's true, and it is never just because you think they'd like to know. And likewise with silence: It's rarely neutral. Silence speaks. Hell, sometimes it yells. What it doesn't do is speak clearly. Your silence can mean a lot of things; it can even be interpreted as yes by one person in the room and no by another. If you wish to be understood, without equivocation, silence isn't always the answer.

But it is one of those fantastic Crouching Tiger kinds of weapons: glorious in the right hands, deadly in the wrong ones. Those inclined to the polite or even loving silence have to check their souls to make sure that it's kindness and not fear that's calling the shots. Do I keep my mouth shut because he's vulnerable—or because I can't bear to have another screaming fight? I check myself on the other side as well: Am I telling the truth to help my beloved or to hurt him? If it really does need to be said (drinking problem, yes; taste in ties, no), have I made the absolutely necessary effort to say it as kindly and compassionately as possible?

I don't think I'll ever be the kind for whom silence, transcendent or otherwise, is usually the answer. There's just too much Murray in me. But because there is also a lot of Dellie, with the people I love, I choose compassion and kindness, not only over the hurtful lie but even over truth. The best use I make of silence is as a way station—an important rest stop before I get on the train with one parent or the other.

Amy Bloom is hard at work on a novel about memory, secrecy and silence.

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