She backed away, and pressed herself hard against my side, and in a whisper asked the question that finished us all.

“Then is Uncle Sebastian dead?” The officers came in quietly and took him, and he did not resist, and my daughter hid her face against my hip while they led her father out of the house in handcuffs.

I have replayed that moment more than any other, not the arrest itself but the small body pressed against my side, choosing me, turning away from the kneeling man who had once been her whole world.

I did not tell her to do that.