“You may have an opportunity to submit a statement.

You can decide how you want to participate.”

I spent three evenings writing mine.

At first, every paragraph was about Mark: his lies, his choices, his mother, the money.

Then I read it aloud and realized I had barely mentioned Lily except as the person he had endangered.

I started again.

I wrote about the way she checked locks, how she had stopped asking to ride her bicycle outside alone, and how she woke at night because she thought she heard a car in the driveway.

I described the parts of childhood that had been interrupted.