And some of them, I like to believe, felt the first stirrings of something like hope, the guilty relief of watching someone finally, finally refuse to play along, of watching the spell that had held them all for years begin, in the hands of a child, to break.

Whatever they felt, they watched.

For once in that house, every eye was on Chloe, and not one of them dared to look away, and that alone, before the box was ever opened, was a kind of justice.

For three years my daughter had been the one person in that dining room it was safe to overlook, the child at the edge of things, the guest.

Now she was the center of gravity of the entire room, the still point everyone else revolved around, and she had gotten there not by being given anything but by an act of pure will, by choosing to stand up and walk.