His testimony came to one thing, in the end: the injuries were made from above and behind, by a right-handed person, over a period of several minutes, on a body that was not moving much.

Not a struggle. Not a moment. Work.

They deliberated for six hours and forty minutes.

Chapter 7 — The Mailbox

Guilty on all counts.

I am not going to describe the sound my daughter made, or what it did to me, or the number of years, which was read out in a monotone by a judge on a Friday in December and which I could recite for you but which does not, in the end, mean very much.

Numbers of years are for the men who receive them. They are not for the rest of us.