And my daughter said: “Dad?”

Not with fear.

With confusion — the particular vertigo of a child who has two worlds and has just watched them touch.

I did not look at any of the three adults.

I want that recorded accurately, because I have been given credit for it as restraint and it was not restraint, it was the only instruction in my head and I was holding onto it like a rail.

I said, “Hey, Nellie.”