Of no longer having to litigate her own memory at her own dinner table.

I watched the belief work on her like water on a plant that has been dry too long — slowly, and then all at once, the color coming back, the appetite, the terrible jokes, the water glasses on every surface, the singing.

She was not recovering from the punishments, in the end, so much as she was recovering from not being believed about them.

That was the deeper injury, and I believe you, said and meant and said again, was the whole of the medicine.

Chapter 20 — I Believe You

Two months later, the final custody hearing concluded.