And the thing that broke it open was not me.

I had grown too worn down, too doubted, too alone to make anyone listen.

It was a seven-year-old with a teddy bear, who had known, in the plain, unshakable way children know things, that something was wrong, and had done the one thing none of the adults would do.

She had believed the evidence of her own eyes.

That is the whole of it, really — the difference between my daughter and every adult in that house, including, for a while, me.

She had not yet been taught to distrust herself.