“My nephew works there.” She smiled, and I wondered if she was talking about Todd. “I’ve encouraged women to write notes identifying their abusers in case the worst were to happen. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Anyone who wants to keep their location completely private can use the service. Or people who want to get something off their chest without having a conversation about it.”

“This is what my sister wrote to me.” I pulled the message up for what felt like the millionth time and slid my phone across her desk. I didn’t want to look at it again.

Adinah read it quietly and slid the phone back.

“Reading that message led me down a rabbit hole,” I said. “What Caro says is clear. Her husband wanted to kill her. But the more I dig, the more I find people who . . . people who had their own motives to hurt her. How long did you know her?”

“I met Caroline when she was a student at SUNY. She talked to me for an assignment and ended up wanting to get involved. Diotima’s always been run in a decentralized way, so she was able to answer hotline calls from New Paltz.”

“Did Caro ever tell you that our father beat our mother?”

“No.” Adinah shook her head sadly. “She told me your mother used to hit her.”

I was so upset I couldn’t answer. “That’s not . . . ” That’s not true, I wanted to say, even though it wasn’t exactly a lie. You get away with everything because you’re the baby was Caro’s refrain when we were kids. I had dim memories of my mother slapping me, but they were buried deep. You’re lucky. She used to hit me with a hairbrush, Caro had told me more than once.

“Violence is often part of our family histories,” Adinah said. “It’s especially painful to talk about, because you feel shame. You have a sense of being disloyal, even though you’re not.”

She pushed a box of tissues toward me, and I dried my eyes and blew my nose.

“I don’t even really know what Diotima does,” I said, desperate to turn the thread of our conversation away from myself.