Next up on the video is Dennis outside his butcher’s shop, hands on hips in his white apron.

“When they first moved here Grace was in one of those manual wheelchairs, but you could see she was nowhere near strong enough to shift the thing: her arms were like twigs, you know. Anyway, everyone in the community collected money and held fundraisers, ran marathons and what-have-you, and we raised over two thousand quid to get her the powered wheelchair so she could operate it herself with the joystick and not have to be pushed when she came to a hill or whatever.”

The interviewer says something I don’t hear. Dennis smiles in response and his cheeks grow into round red apples of pride.

“Yes, we’re a very close-knit community, that’s what we’re like down here on the estate: we all look after each other, doing shopping for the elderly, visiting the sick. We like to help each other out, do what we can for our neighbors, you know.”

Dennis trots out his neat little lies. I don’t remember anyone coming to visit Granddad when he was bedbound after his stroke, and there were reports last year of a retiree dying in their bungalow from the cold and no one noticing until spring. Most of what Dennis is saying is bollocks. Before Meg and Grace moved here the neighbors wouldn’t say hello in the street. Even Dennis was just “the butcher” until Meg told us his name. But Meg and Grace changed us: everyone would stop to say hello, to ask after Grace as the brave mum wheeled her broken daughter down the road, as though ignoring them would be like turning away from a lost, frightened toddler crying for help. Meg would welcome the sighs, smiles, and arm squeezes like a prima donna accepting flowers at the end of a performance. It was as though they flirted with us until we fell in love with them, as if they knew that one day plastic-faced news reporters would be asking questions and they’d have us to tell the world how wonderful they were.

The camera cuts to the outside of the salon. I stare at the photo of Grace and Meg in the window, the one where Grace is holding on to her IV and Meg is holding on to Grace. It makes me think of the photo I showed Charlie, and as I stare I hear the phlegmy rattle in his voice again. I remember how his finger shook over the photo before he started shouting.

“She’s sick, don’t you people understand? She should never have been born! She’s sick.”

But I’ve seen Grace standing, watched her run. I know she’s not sick, not anymore. Is it possible the doctors misdiagnosed her? I remember Dr. Rossi, how suspicious she seemed: What do you know?

Was she worried we’d uncovered malpractice? That she could somehow be held responsible? But if Grace had been misdiagnosed, if she wasn’t as sick as she thought, why didn’t she tell the world? Why aren’t we celebrating instead of mourning?