“He put her in a basement.”

“He did,” said my brother. “And she was in it, and you’ve spent seven years deciding what she’s allowed to know about it, and the results are on the internet with nine hundred thousand plays.”

I did not speak to Ronald for eleven days. He was right, which is why.

So I found out where Russell Vaughn was living, which took Grant’s people about four hours and which I could have done at any point in seven years and had specifically instructed myself not to.

A rented room above a hardware store in Chattanooga. Six years in the same place. He works at a parts warehouse — has, for five years, forty hours, no gaps.

He has never contested the order. Not once. He was served with the original and he signed the acknowledgment and he has never filed a modification, never filed for visitation, never petitioned, never appeared.