Every time my brother-in-law drove me home, I would black out and wake up sore. My husband just laughed and said I was out of shape. After the fourth trip, I hid a voice recorder in my purse — and that night I heard a phone call that made me realize the blackouts had never been accidents.

A notary journal in this state records the date and time, the type of document, the name of the signer, and the form of identification sighted.

And a thumbprint. In ink. Which is why that requirement exists at all and which my father knew perfectly well in 2019.

My thumbprint is in that book four times.

Four clean prints, in ink, in a bound journal with numbered pages, taken from a woman who was not conscious for three of them.

They did not want my body.

They wanted my right hand. My thumb. My face in a room in front of a commissioned officer of this state, with my own driver’s licence out of my own bag, on a table, next to a document.

That is what the rustle of fabric is on that recording. He is getting my licence out of my bag before he opens the door.

And that is what the seat motor is for. A woman who cannot hold herself up has to come out of a car somehow, and the seat has to go back before two men can lift her.