A verbatim record of what somebody said is not a record of what they meant.

I have known that professionally since I was twenty-two.

It took me until I was forty to know it about my own family.

Part Twenty-One: The Choice She Did Not Make

The service plan is a document.

It is not a threat and it is not a negotiation; it is a list of tasks, and if a parent completes them the agency has to move toward reunification, and if she does not, it does not.

Perla’s had six tasks on it.