So the cruelest-seeming thing — letting him go on, letting him kiss my forehead and plan his Aspen house for two more weeks — was in fact the most strategic thing, because every day he thought he was safe was another day of evidence, another transfer documented, another word on tape.

I hated those fourteen days more than I have hated any stretch of my life.

But I have come to think of them as the price of doing it right — of the difference between the satisfaction of a scene and the certainty of a win.

I wanted, more than almost anything, to stop performing and scream the truth in his face.

Eleanor taught me that the scream was a luxury, and that luxuries are exactly what you cannot afford when your child’s future is the stake on the table.