I have carried something else from that counseling room, too, a small lesson about anger that I would not have expected to matter.

When Hannah described what Pamela had said to her, my whole body wanted to erupt, and the counselor stopped me, gently, with a look — because a child who has been manipulated into believing her honesty causes crises will read a father’s explosion, even an explosion on her behalf, as confirmation that speaking the truth makes the adults she loves come apart.

My rage, however righteous, would have taught Hannah the exact lesson Pamela had spent six months teaching her: that telling the truth breaks things.

And so I learned to hold it.