Every time my brother-in-law drove me home, I would lose consciousness and wake up with unexplained aches and pains. My husband would only laugh and say, “You’re just out of shape, that’s all.” After the fourth ride, I secretly slipped a voice recorder into my purse and said nothing. That night, I listened to a phone conversation between the two of them that revealed my blackouts had never been accidental.

“You know you can stop thinking about this every minute,” she said.

“What if I miss something?”

“Then the people whose job it is to investigate can find it.

You get to be a person while they’re doing that.”

I leaned against her shoulder.

It was the first time since childhood that I had allowed myself to be comforted without needing to demonstrate that I was fine.

That night, I finally listened to the original recording through the investigators’ summarized transcript rather than through headphones.

I saw the lines where Julian had ordered Marcus not to leave marks.