My son-in-law’s family thought it’d be funny to push my daughter into the icy lake. She hit her head and started sinking, gasping for breath while they stood there laughing. I screamed for help—no one moved. When the ambulance finally arrived, I called my brother and said: “Do what you have to do.”

The air that day at the Vandor’s Lakehouse on Lake Tahoe smelled of pine needles and fear. To everyone else, it probably just smelled of pine and the smoke from the grill that had long since cooled, but I always caught that second, bitter undertone. I sat on a wicker chair on the porch, a little separate from the big table, and watched my daughter, Milina.