That realization forced me to face my own failure, and I have not tried to spare myself since.

I had taken Pamela’s willingness to help with homework and attend school functions as proof of lasting affection.

I had overlooked how quiet Hannah went whenever Pamela walked into a room.

I had dismissed my daughter’s resistance to household changes as ordinary wedding anxiety, had explained away her frequent stomachaches, had failed to read a hundred small signals that, laid end to end, told a clear and terrible story.

The hardest part was the contradiction at the center of it.