She was telling me something she couldn’t have put into words: that she was beginning to believe she might not need to keep the weapon close, that maybe, in this house, help was not something she had to be ready to summon in secret but something simply, permanently available, down the hall, with the door open.

It was a very small gesture.

A child putting a watch on a table.

It was also the sound of a lock, somewhere deep inside her, quietly beginning to give.

Chapter 23 — The Trial

The criminal case moved through the months that followed, and the prosecution’s case was airtight.