He treated it as an injury that would heal in its own time, if it was given time, and he gave it time.

I have thought a great deal about the difference between how Elliot treated our fear and how Roland had used it.

Roland had needed us afraid, had cultivated our fear, had fed on it.

Elliot simply absorbed it, patiently, night after night in a chair in a hallway, asking nothing in return, until slowly — so slowly we did not notice it happening — the fear began to have somewhere to go besides around and around inside us.

That is what a safe adult does for a frightened child, and it is not dramatic, and it does not photograph well, and it was the thing that saved us in the end more than any verdict: a man in a chair outside a door, staying awake so that two girls could finally sleep.