Sidonie had to go through a long legal process simply to prove to the state that she was alive — to restore her identity, reissue the documents that said she existed.

Radley lost his parental rights at once.

Temporary custody of Percy went to Ellard while Sidonie did the slow work of putting herself back together in the care of people trained for exactly this.

There was a bleak absurdity to the paperwork that Sidonie came, eventually, to find almost funny, in the dark way that survivors learn to find things funny.

She had been legally dead for six years.

There was a death certificate with her name on it, filed and accepted.