The route by which she had obtained the medication was itself a crime, and the investigators followed all of it, and none of the how of it belongs on this page.

But there was one thing recovered from a kitchen drawer that I have to name, because of what it proved about the inside of her.

It was a spiral notebook.

Among grocery lists and bill reminders, in Sondra’s own handwriting, were short notes planning when to keep her daughter quiet — before company, before trips.

She hadn’t hidden it.

To my sister-in-law, sedating her own child had been a matter of household management, worth a line on a to-do list.