The therapist asked me what all of those had in common.

I said they were all small.

She said: “They were all small, and they were all your daughter telling you something in the only register available to a nine-year-old, which is a question with the important part left out.

And the reason you didn’t hear it isn’t that you’re inattentive.

It’s that Pamela had already told you the story that made each one mean something harmless.”

Because she had.