Forty-seven days of my child being left out in the cold. Forty-seven days of my mother-in-law pocketing my hard-earned money while leaving my daughter to wander along a busy state highway.

“November 3,” I read, my hands shaking so badly the paper rustled. “Emma has a large, dark bruise on her left upper arm.

She was very quiet today. When I asked her about it, she started crying. She said her grandmother grabbed her by the shoulder and threw her out of the house because she was making too much noise while her grandmother was on the phone with her friends from church.”

I stopped breathing. I remembered that bruise. Emma had told me she fell on the school playground. I had believed her because I was too tired, too distracted by bills, too busy trying to keep our heads above water.

“She’s a good kid, Sarah,” Maeve said, reaching across the counter to touch my hand. “She never asks for anything. She just sits in the back office on an old milk crate and reads her library books. But last week, when the temperature dropped to twenty degrees, her grandmother wasn’t even home. I drove by the house myself. The lights were out. The car was gone. She was at the casino in Indiana. I know she goes there on Thursdays.”

An older, steadier anger rose inside my chest. It wasn’t the kind of anger that makes you scream. It was cold. It was absolute.

“Thank you, Maeve,” I said quietly. I took the blue spiral notebook and tucked it into my bag.

“What are you going to do?” Maeve asked, her eyes full of concern.

“I’m going to end this,” I said.

I walked out to my Buick and called the Clermont County Sheriff’s Department. I didn’t shed a single tear. I told the dispatcher exactly what was happening, gave them the address of the Sunoco, and then drove the three miles to Brenda’s yellow ranch house on Route 4.

When I pulled into the gravel driveway, Brenda’s silver sedan was parked in its usual spot. The television was blaring so loudly I could hear it from the porch.

I didn’t knock. I opened the door and walked right into the living room.

Brenda was sitting in her plush recliner, a bowl of buttered popcorn in her lap, watching a game show. She didn’t even look up when I walked in.

“Sarah, you’re early,” she grumbled, her eyes glued to the screen. “I told you, Emma is fine. She’s down in the basement playing.”

“Emma isn’t in the basement, Brenda,” I said. My voice was dangerously calm.

Brenda finally looked at me, her expression turning smug. “Of course she is. Don’t start with your drama, Sarah. You’ve been high-strung ever since David died.”

Just then, a knock sounded at the front door. I opened it, and Deputy Miller walked in, his heavy boots thudding against Brenda’s linoleum floor.