I stroked her hair until she fell asleep.

Then I stood in Rachel’s kitchen, staring at the family photograph on her refrigerator.

Lily was missing two front teeth in it.

Mark had taken the picture during a picnic and joked that she looked like a tiny pirate.

The memory startled me.

I had believed that being a good father on happy days made him incapable of being dangerous on terrible ones.

Rachel poured tea into two mismatched mugs.