There were records, in a dozen government systems, that recorded her as deceased.

And so the state that had failed to notice she’d been alive and caged the whole time now required her to prove, at length, with forms and hearings and verifications, that she was not in fact dead — as though her standing there breathing were insufficient, as though the burden fell on her to disprove the lie two criminals had entered into the record.

She sat across desks from clerks who needed her to document her own existence.

She signed affidavits swearing she was herself.

It should have been infuriating, and some days it was, but mostly she let it wash over her, because every form she signed was a form signed by a living hand, and there is a strange grim satisfaction in being made to prove you are alive when for six years you were not sure you would ever get the chance.

She proved it.