The only way to protect Hannah from being cast in it was to tell the true story first, plainly, in the same public space where the false one would otherwise have been born.

Truth spoken once, in the open, is a shield.

I was not attacking Brenda.

I was raising a shield over my child.

Chapter 18 — Did You or Did You Not

Brenda reached the arbor and grabbed its wooden frame, her voice rising now, half into the open air.

“That is an entirely twisted version of a very complicated family situation!”

I looked at her directly, in front of everyone.