Chapter 3 — I Got to My Child

I crossed the room to my daughter, and I picked her up, and I walked out of that banquet without a backward glance, while red frosting slid down the table and the smell of spilled food followed me through the door — because a two-year-old had risen from her chair to get her, once, and I was not going to be the last adult in that room to fail to protect her.

Fiona did not cry right away.

She pressed her warm face against my neck, and then, in the parking lot, her small body began to shake.