To have done that to a person is a particular kind of evil.

To have done it to your own mother is one I still do not have words for.

The doctors explained it to me carefully, in the weeks after the rescue, and understanding the medical reality of what had been done only deepened both my rage and my relief.

The relief was that so much of what I had feared was permanent turned out not to be.

On that first night, seeing my mother unresponsive, I had assumed the worst, had assumed that whatever had happened to her mind was fixed and irreversible, that even if I saved her I might be saving only a shell.