In that family’s vocabulary, what Arthur had done would have been a lapse, an overreaction, a regrettable incident, a matter best handled quietly among relatives.

It would never, if the Vances had their way, be called by its real name.

And its real name was a crime.

A man had endangered a child’s life.

That is not a family disagreement or a discipline dispute or an unfortunate misunderstanding.

It is an act the law recognizes and punishes, precisely because children cannot protect themselves and someone must, and I was not going to let the enormous gravity of it be talked down into the soft evasive language that powerful families use to make their sins disappear.

So I named it.