And I believe you.” And for the first time in days, a genuine, unburdened, six-year-old’s smile appeared on Lily’s face.

Marcus has thought a great deal about that question of hers, is Sarah going to tell you I’m lying, because it revealed the true depth of what had been done to his daughter, a harm that went beyond the substance in her juice, and because his answer to it was, he now believes, more important than any evidence he ever gathered.

Consider what that question meant.

A six-year-old, having finally worked up the courage to tell her father the truth, having been believed and taken to safety and examined by doctors, was still afraid, still bracing, still expecting that at any moment the adult who had harmed her would appear and say the magic words that would make everyone doubt her again.