“Hannah, sweetie, are you in there?” I called, tapping on the wood with my knuckles, keeping my voice easy the way you do when you do not yet want a child to hear your fear.

For a moment there was only silence, a heavy waiting silence, and then her voice came through the gap at the bottom of the door, small and frightened and trying so hard to be brave.

“Dad, I’m in here,” she said.

“But she told me I can’t come out until everyone leaves.”

Something in me went very still and very cold at those words, at that she, at the careful obedient fear in my daughter’s voice.

I ran my hand along the top of the doorframe, where places like that so often keep a spare, and my fingers found the key.