“Is this,” he said slowly, “what you called Charlotte attacking you?”

“You didn’t see what happened before the recording started!” she cried.

But he was already scrubbing further back, because something had caught his eye — Tristan’s legs.

He rewound nearly an hour, and there was his son on the couch, kicking both legs high in the air, laughing, no splint, no pain, nothing wrong with him at all, while his mother knelt and fitted the plastic brace around a perfectly healthy leg.

And her recorded voice came clear through the little speaker. I told you this would work.