First, I made sure my daughter was safe.

First, I watched the caseworker carry her away from the noise and the handcuffs and the shouting, into a quiet room, into warmth, into the care of my own lawyer, before I turned back to say a single word to Julian.

Because the confrontation, satisfying as it would be, was for me.

Maya’s safety was the point.

Everything I had done, from the memorized number to the Hague petition to the marshals at the gate, had been, at its core, in service of one thing: getting my two-year-old daughter out of the arms of the people who had taken her and into a place where she was safe and loved.

The rest of it, the arrests, the speeches, the reckoning, was real, and I do not pretend it gave me no satisfaction.