I did not know yet what I would do with all of it, or whether the day would ever come when it mattered.

I only knew, from years of caring for the sick, that the truth leaves tracks, that what is done in a sickroom leaves a trail if anyone bothers to record it, and that someone in that house had to be the one writing it down.

There is a discipline to that kind of quiet work that does not come naturally when you are frightened and angry, and I had to teach it to myself.

Every instinct in me wanted to act, to shout, to confront, to do something loud and immediate.