He had made the house small and dark and quiet, a sealed world where his word was the only law.

And with one phone call I had punched a hole in that sealed world and let the largest possible thing pour in.

That is what the law is for.

That is the whole reason it exists — so that the frightened and the isolated and the outnumbered are not, in the end, actually alone; so that behind one overwhelmed daughter on a bathroom floor stands something vast and patient and impossible to smash with a fist or a lie.

Julian had counted on my father being alone.