Standing in that office, watching him stare at the door while our daughter told the truth, I understood that a man who will not stand up to anyone is not harmless at all.

He is simply a weapon that goes off in whatever direction it is pointed, and Adeline had spent a lifetime learning exactly how to point him.

Chapter 6 — The Months Before

I need to explain how a person ends up standing in an exam room, learning from her own child what has been happening in her own house, because it did not happen all at once.

It happened one small dismissal at a time.