Arthur made that sound on the phone that night, and it did more to calm me than any amount of reassurance could have.

He did not tell me it would be all right.

He did not soothe me.

He simply began, in that low even voice, to lay out the machinery, and I understood that I had just handed my rage and my grief and my helplessness to a man who was going to convert all of it into something Julian could not smile past: a deed, a statute, a police cruiser, and a deadline.

There is a particular comfort, when you are drowning in feeling, in the company of someone who deals in facts.