Dad said it wouldn’t.

It happened.

Dr.

Raghunathan took that apart with her over about a year, and she took the parents’ half of it apart with me in a single session, in March, and she was extremely direct about it.

She said: “You told her a lie to make a bad minute in a car easier, and it was a kind lie and I understand exactly why you told it, and it confirmed the abuser’s prediction and disconfirmed yours.

“What you should have said — and nobody knows this in the moment, which is why I’m telling you now rather than criticising you for October — is something like: Some grown-ups have made a mess and grown-ups are going to sort it out, and some of it is going to be sad and horrible, and none of it is because of you, and I will tell you the truth about all of it the whole way through.