The first survey, on the eleventh of October, showed one thing besides the femur.

A healing fracture of the left seventh rib, posteriorly, with callus formation.

Callus is the material the body lays down around a break while it is mending, and it is visible on an X-ray, and it appears on a timetable that is reasonably well characterized in the literature.

The radiologist’s estimate was two to five weeks.

Two to five weeks before the eleventh of October.

Esme had never been in my care for longer than about ninety minutes at a time in her life, and the last occasion before the eleventh was the fourteenth of August, and that was at my parents’ house with six other people present.