Part Nineteen: The Nine Words I Did Not Say

This is the most important part of this account and it is nine words long and it is the reason I agreed to write any of it down.

What I said was: “Let me get him some trousers.”

What I should have said, standing in my own doorway, in my own dressing gown, with my own thirteen-year-old child behind my hip, was:

Is he being detained?