A person can survive a great deal of physical harm with their spirit intact.

What breaks the spirit is the aloneness of holding a truth that you believe no one will ever accept — the specific despair of knowing what happened to you and being certain that the world has already been arranged to call you a liar.

That is what the Prescotts had done to my wife, more damaging than her injuries: they had made her believe she was alone with the truth.

And so the most important thing I ever said in my life was three words, said before I had a single piece of evidence in hand, said purely because it was true: I believed you.