I’d created a new e-mail account that only my parents and therapist know about, and I resist the urge to check the other one. My old e-mail was made public when I was “doxed,” to use the vernacular of the shadowy Internet world that’s become painfully familiar to me. I’ve long since gone dark on social media.

The sheer number of messages I get—even this long after the fact—never fails to shock me. I would have expected the bizarre people who write hate mail to strangers to have moved on to a fresh kill by now. I’d like to think these people are lonely, angry trolls sitting in their parents’ basements spewing invective because they have nothing better to do. But I once reverse searched a handful of the e-mail addresses on Facebook and they turned up normal-looking men and women smiling and laughing at Christmas parties and in vacation photos; people with friends, families, children of their own. I fought the urge to forward on the death threats and all-caps e-mails condemning me and my family to hell to these friends and family members. Do you know about your husband’s dark furtive habits? I wanted to ask the wife of Joe Pinelli, one of my more dedicated digital tormentors. Do you realize that after he tucks in Aiden, 7, and Hailey, 5, he opens up his laptop to write me pages-long e-mails full of hatred and scripture?

The problem is, you cannot unsee this side of humanity, and it makes even the most benign-looking strangers appear to you as a potential threat.

I got some nice messages of support from ski fans, but those made me feel awful in their own way, like I’d let them down. They reminded me, uncomfortably, of who I’d been, a version of myself that had been hurtling away from me at an accelerating speed since that ghastly day. It also kicked back that terrible question: Had my singular focus blinded me? Was there something I could have done?

Everyone needs to believe they would have seen it sooner, that they would’ve been able to help her. People need this lie to feel certain that nothing like this could ever happen to them, that the Clearys are the stuff of horror movies, rather than ordinary life. The truth is, nothing can prepare you for something like Penny.

Penny on Christmas