She was exactly the same.

That’s the finding. That’s the entire finding, and I drove home with it and I’ve had it ever since.

Within four minutes she had told me that the last two years had been very hard for her. Within six she had told me that people online had been unspeakable, that a woman at her church had cut her, that she’d had to stop going to the Thursday group.

Within eight she had explained that the messages were taken out of context, and that Melissa had always been unstable, and that my father had been “in a state.”

At around minute ten she said the thing I’d driven out there for, though she didn’t know it. She said:

“You know I nearly came that night. I was getting my coat.”