The family court building, the next morning, was full of quiet, anxious families and hurrying attorneys and the particular fluorescent weight of a place where the most important things in people’s lives are decided.

I wore a dark navy blazer I had not put on since my divorce.

Richard arrived in a sharp gray suit, flanked by his attorney, with Patricia beside him, and she did not look at me once, the entire day.

Maya did not have to be in the room.

She waited in a private room down the hall, with a kind court-appointed child advocate, and I was more grateful for that than for almost anything — that she would not have to sit and listen to two adults argue about whether her suffering had been real.

Richard’s attorney opened with exactly the story I had been warned to expect, the story they had spent months manufacturing the evidence for.