My granddaughter.

Just — let me hold her once.” And I looked down at Rina, asleep, safe, warm, breathing her small even breaths against me, and then I looked at the man who had sent me and this child to a freezing garage on the coldest morning of my life so a con man could have the bedroom.

I did not raise my voice.

I had nothing left to prove to him, and cruelty would have been a kind of proving.

“No,” I said.

Just that.