Val, please.

Please, you have to help me, tell them, we can fix this, I made a mistake — ”

I said nothing.

I had spent fifteen years listening to that voice, trusting that voice, being soothed and reassured and steered by that voice.

I had nothing left to say to it.

I stood beside my mother with my hand on her shoulder and I watched them take my husband away, and I did not give him one single word to carry with him.