Not her tears, because she had none to show.

Her composure.

The unbearable, premature dignity of a little girl who had learned, far too young, to hold the unholdable by herself.

Chapter 6 — The Visitation Room

When the door of the visitation room opened, Elena was already waiting, her wrists shackled to the steel table bolted to the floor, the orange prison uniform hanging loose from a frame that five years had worn thin.

She had rehearsed this moment in her mind more times than she could count, in the long nights of the last three years since she had last been allowed to see her daughter.