You just take off with our daughter and don’t even leave a note?”

He did not ask if Fiona was all right.

That was the first thing I noticed, in my cold and careful state — that a father whose five-year-old had been found on a freezing floor did not think to ask whether she was hurt.

He asked about the note.

“Why was she asleep on the freezing kitchen floor, Blake?” I asked.

My voice came out level and calm, because ten years of trauma work had taught me that panic is what kills people, and icy precision is what saves them.