Whatever it found, she would have to know, and having known, she would have to act, and acting would mean the permanent end of any pretense that she and her parents were a family in anything but name.

She had held the authorization letter unsigned for nine days.

What finally moved her pen was not anger.

It was the pregnancy.

She had put a hand on the small rise of her belly one morning and understood, with sudden and total clarity, that she was about to bring a child into a family that ate its own, and that she had a choice to make about which kind of person that child’s mother was going to be — one who saw the rot and looked away to keep the peace, or one who saw it and did something, whatever it cost.

She had signed the letter that afternoon.