Eight years after my husband filed for divorce the week I told him I was pregnant, he texted me an invitation to Christmas dinner at his mother’s house. He expected me to turn up alone. I turned up with four eight-year-olds who have his jaw — and then one of them asked him a question and the room stopped.

It was not nobody believes you.

It was everyone’s listening.

Because that is what she thought she had. A room. Thirty-five people who would carry it out of that house and make it true by repeating it.

And she had that, for eight years, and it worked.