At the hospital, she beamed at the nurse. “She’s clumsy. Always has been.”

The doctor came in about ten minutes later. Dr. Alexander Reed. Steady eyes. Careful hands. He looked at my arm, then at the yellowing bruises along my jaw, at the fading finger marks on my neck.

He didn’t ask my mother a thing. He looked right at me and said, gently, “Did you fall?”

My mother tightened her grip on my wrist.

I lifted my eyes. “No,” I said. “I survived.”

Dr. Reed stepped out. Thirty seconds later, he was on the phone with 911.