“From here on, Walter, we do everything by the book.

Everything.

Because this is not a broken engagement anymore.

This is a case.”

Chapter 9 — My Daughter on the Couch

When we reached Sarah’s house, Emily was on the couch in sweatpants and an old NYU sweatshirt, her wrist wrapped in a bandage, her lip dark with bruising, and the moment she saw me she began to cry.

“I’m sorry, Dad,” she said, and it broke me, because she had nothing to be sorry for and everything to be owed.

I crossed that room faster than my knees should have allowed and I took my daughter in my arms, careful of the wrist, and I said the only thing there was to say.