If she had threatened her, Nell would have told somebody in a week, because a threatened child knows she is in trouble and looks for an adult.

What Corinne did was make her responsible.

If you tell your dad, Mommy will get in trouble, and it will be your fault.

That is not a threat.

That is a job.

It hands a seven-year-old the management of her mother’s safety and makes her the load-bearing element in a family, and a child given that job will do it, diligently, for as long as it takes, and will not tell anybody, because telling is the failure.

Nell carried it for nineteen months.