I didn’t feel particularly brave as I approached my father in the Chapel

that night. I saw my role as reconnaissance: I was there to relay
information, to tell Dad that Shawn had threatened Audrey, because
Dad would know what to do.

Or perhaps I was calm because I was not there, not really. Maybe I
was across an ocean, on another continent, reading Hume under a
stone archway. Maybe I was racing through King’s College, the
Discourse on Inequality tucked under my arm.

“Dad, I need to tell you something.”
I said that Shawn had made a joke about shooting Audrey, and that I
thought it was because Audrey had confronted him about his behavior.
Dad stared at me, and the skin where his lips had been tightened. He
shouted for Mother and she appeared. Her mood was somber; I
couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t look me in the eye.

“What exactly are you saying?” Dad said.
From that moment it was an interrogation. Every time I suggested
that Shawn was violent or manipulative in any way, Dad shouted at
me: “Where’s your proof? Do you have proof?”

“I have journals,” I said.
“Get them, I’m going to read them.”
“I don’t have them with me.” This was a lie; they were under my bed.
“What the hell am I supposed to think if you ain’t got proof?” Dad
was still shouting. Mother sat on the sofa’s edge, her mouth open in a
slant. She looked in agony.

“You    don’t   need    proof,” I   said    quietly.    “You’ve seen    it. You’ve  both