That was the thing I understood later, and it broke something in me — that my little girl, frightened past bearing, had crawled into the smallest darkest space she could find and gone silent, the way a rabbit freezes, because some animal part of her had decided that being unseen was the only safety left.

Her hair was tangled and her lips were cracked and she was thinner than she’d been three weeks before, and she had clearly been out there, or somewhere like it, alone and afraid, for longer than any child should be alone with anything.

But she was alive, and when she saw it was really me her face came apart, and I crossed that yard in about three steps and got down on my knees in the weeds and pulled her into my arms.

She grabbed my neck with both hands and held on so hard it hurt and did not make a sound, no crying, just that terrible silent clutching, and I said the only thing there was to say, over and over into her tangled hair.

“I’ve got you.

I’ve got you.