The mother of a girl in Hannah’s class said, carefully, on a sidewalk, that at a birthday party in February she had heard Pamela describe Hannah to another parent as “a lot, since her mom.” She had assumed she’d misheard the tone.

And the pediatrician’s office called, which I had not expected at all, because the pediatrician had made a note in January after two Saturday stomachaches and had wanted, five months later, to make sure that somebody had followed up on it.

Seven people, all of whom had seen a corner of it, none of whom had seen enough to feel entitled to say anything.

That is the shape of these things.

Not one villain and one blind man.

Nine or ten decent people each holding a fragment that only means something next to the others, and no mechanism anywhere for putting the fragments on the same table.