She did not say anything when she did it.

She just stepped across.

I have thought about that particular second more than any other second in twenty-nine years.

Because there is a thing a child does when she is afraid of a stranger, and there is a different thing a child does when she has already been doing this job for a while, and I knew which one I was looking at before I had a word for it.

“Okay,” I said, and I stopped where I was, and I crouched down about six feet away and put my hands on my knees where she could see them.

“I’m not going to come any closer until you tell me it’s okay.