“You told me Daddy was watching over us from heaven,” she whispered, wiping a tear from her mother’s cheek with one small thumb.

“He told me, in a dream, to check the bear.” Elena pulled her daughter back against her chest and held her, rocking her gently, in the warm light streaming through the tall courtroom windows, and for a long moment she did not speak at all, because there were no words large enough, and because after five years of having so much taken from her, she had finally been given back the only thing she had ever truly needed.

The legal battle was over.

The web of lies had collapsed.