She thought about that small machine sometimes, sitting in its box on a shelf in her office.

It had been an ordinary thing, a tool she’d used to dictate memos on long drives, and it had ended up being the hinge the whole world turned on — because a frightened eight-year-old had thought to find it in a drawer of fountain pens and slide it under a pillow.

People wanted to make the story about her, about the star attorney who woke from a coma to convict her husband.

But she knew where the real center of it was.

The recorder had only captured what was said.

It was Sam who had believed she could hear, Sam who had kept the secret, Sam who had pressed record, Sam who had stood in a doorway at two in the morning and refused to move.