It was the meaning of his own stamp, the small everyday trust that lets an entire society function, and that people like him quietly poison for a fee.

I testified at the trial, of course, and I have thought about the strange doubleness of that experience, sitting in a witness box describing, in the calm procedural language of my profession, the destruction of my own family.

In one sense it was the easiest testimony I have ever given, because the evidence was so complete that my words were almost a formality; the recordings spoke, the paper trail spoke, and I merely narrated what everyone in the room could already see.

But in another sense it was the hardest thing I have ever done, because the defendant at the far table, the one I was helping to convict of felony elder abuse, had once been a small girl who shared my bedroom, who I had taught to ride a bicycle, who I had covered for a hundred times in our childhood when she got into trouble.