“This one’s you,” she said, tapping a tall figure in enormous round glasses.

“Are those my glasses?” I asked.

“They’re your seeing glasses,” she said, matter-of-fact.

“So you can tell when a kid needs help.”

At the bottom of one page, in wobbly black letters, she had written: I am not scared of chairs anymore. I had to put the drawing down for a second and look out the window at the paper birds until I could speak.

Bernadette stood at the counter watching her daughter chatter, and the look on her face — exhausted, unguarded, safe — was the whole verdict, worth more than every ruling that was still to come.