He had used a child’s innocence against her, dressed cruelty up as a game, and left her to freeze in the dark so that he would not be disturbed — so that he could be with my younger sister, Danielle, in the guest room, undisturbed, while I was at the hospital saving strangers’ lives.

I want to be very clear about what I felt, hearing it, because it matters to everything that came after.

I did not feel hysteria, whatever Blake would later tell people.

I felt the specific, total calm of a mother who has just understood, completely, what her child has been subjected to, and has decided, in that same instant, precisely what she is going to do about it.

Fiona was watching my face, frightened that she had done something wrong.