I thought about the word overreacting, which had been used about me by that family four or five times a year for four years, always affectionately, always by a person who was smiling.

And then I put my hand very lightly on my daughter’s head, because I had not been able to bring myself to touch it properly, and I felt the stubble and the scab behind her ear.

And at about twenty to three in the morning, lying in a hotel bed in the dark, I remembered the camera.

In 2023, when Brenda moved in and Daisy’s crib came into our room, we had a part-time sitter for four months — a student who came three afternoons a week.

She was perfectly nice.

I liked her.