That is how badly I wanted it to be true, how ready I was to hand them the benefit of every doubt.

I straightened up in my hard plastic chair, shifting Hazel gently, getting ready to be grateful.

It is almost funny to me now, that flicker of relief, standing as it did right on the edge of the moment everything became clear.

But I do not laugh at it unkindly, at the woman I was in that instant, because that flicker of hope was not foolishness so much as decency.

I had assumed the best of Brenda because assuming the best of people is how I had been raised and how I preferred to move through the world.