She’s remarkable, and I want you to hear that before we do anything else, because you are going to spend the next two years treating her like something that got damaged and she is going to feel it.”

Part Thirteen: The Interview

The forensic interview took place in the following September, eleven months after Norwalk, at a child advocacy center in a converted house in Bridgeport with a garden and a waiting room full of the world’s worst magazines.

I was not in the room.

I want to say that first, because people always assume the father is in the room.

Nell sat with a trained interviewer named Delroy Achterberg in a small room with two chairs and a low table and a camera in the corner that was pointed out to her at the start, because they always are.