My four-year-old daughter, Emma, stood completely still for a moment—then suddenly rushed toward the pastor, shouting something that brought the entire room into stunned silence.

That’s the part I struggled the most to accept for months: not only did he do something awful, he also genuinely believed he was fixing the world.

The officers separated Emma from the scene with a paramedic and they sat me down because the blood from my forehead was still running down my temple.

Trevor wanted to approach.

I didn’t let him.

Not yet.

He still hadn’t decided whether his failure that morning was cowardice, complicity, or such a rotten mixture of both that it deserved its own name.

Emma was interviewed with an almost unreal delicacy given the circumstances, sitting in a side room with juice, tissues and a white blanket.

I could see her through the glass, so small, so obedient in her pain, and every time I bent my head to answer something I felt my chest open up again.