“He said that about you.”

I kept my eyes on the street.

I had defended Mark’s comments as impatience, stress, a demanding career.

Hearing them repeated in my daughter’s voice made them sound different.

He had been teaching her, carefully and patiently, to doubt me before she ever needed to tell me the truth.

Across the block, a neighbor opened her garage door.

She saw nothing unusual.

Her husband put a trash bin by the curb.