They construct, patiently, over years, a story in which she is the unstable one, the unreliable one, the one no one should believe — so that even when she stands in the open air screaming the truth, the world looks at the composed man beside her and decides she must be mad.

He had built that story so well that a stranger on a highway chose it over her own voice.

He had no idea that within the year, that same lie would be dismantled, in the open, in front of a judge, by the woman he was so sure no one would ever believe.

Chapter 9 — The Defense

Three days later, Mr.

Montgomery came to the hospital with the shape of what was coming.