“You’re asking whether my husband was cruel to me for two days in a house where his mother was cruel to me for five months. He was. Both things are in your file. I’d like the person who reads it to have to look at them next to each other.”

Nobody said anything for a moment. The court reporter’s hands were still.

“Let’s take ten minutes,” Sandra Kesler said.

In the hallway Gavin was standing by the window with his back to me, and when he turned around I understood that the conference room door was not as thick as anyone had told us it was.

He didn’t say anything. He’d heard the whole thing.

“I’ve never said it,” I said.