She drove her to the appointments.

She moved to a state where nobody knew her, took a cottage on her son-in-law’s property, got herself onto a school’s authorized list, and over eighteen months made herself the operating center of a household in a series of increments each of which was too small to object to.

And then she took a child.

The interviews established that she initiated it.

Gerald had asked, once, in the spring, whether he would ever meet the girl, in the way a man in a rented room says a sad thing out loud.