“Patricia.

How long has he been hitting you?”

Her hands shook so badly she could barely hold them still.

“Thirty-two years,” she whispered.

Thirty-two years.

Longer than I had been alive.

Thirty-two years of that gentle, terrified woman absorbing blows in beautiful houses, while her son learned to sigh at the sound of them and the world outside saw only an elegant, enviable family.

I opened my encrypted laptop, and I looked at Arthur’s message one more time — we can make this disappear — and I felt something in me settle into a hard and final shape.