But that November night I didn’t know what to do with any of it except the practical things, so I did the practical things.
I asked her if she still had the messages. She said she’d deleted some. I told her not to delete another one. I bought her a new phone that Saturday and told Daniel it was an early Christmas present, and I told Ava to put the old one in the bottom drawer of my desk, powered off, and never touch it again.
I found her a therapist forty minutes away in Brantham, where nobody in that family goes, a woman named Dr. Ilse Pell who takes Thursdays at four. I paid cash, because insurance goes to the policyholder and the policyholder is Daniel.
I started a log. Dates, times, who was in the room, what was said. Nineteen years of claims work and the only real skill I have is that I write it down the same day.
And I told her, that night and every few weeks after, that when she was ready to tell her father I would sit beside her while she did it, and that I would not do it for her.
