How many times since August, 2002, did Michelle Knight think that she was going to die? When it became clear that Ariel Castro, who had offered her a ride, was not taking her home, but to a basement in his own house? The first time, or the hundredth time, she was tied up with the chains and rope the police found there, or when, as she said, according to press accounts of the initial police report, Castro raped and beat her? Another prisoner arrived, and then another; did that make her own life seem nearer or farther as it became clear, in glimpses of vigils on television, that the city was looking for them but not for her? Or was it the first time, or the second, third, fourth, or fifth time, that she realized that she was pregnant, and then, as she also reportedly told police, watched what happened to her body as Castro systematically starved her and hit her in the stomach until she miscarried? In 2006, according to the report, Castro told her that he would kill her if the baby about to be born to Amanda Berry, whom he had also held for years and raped, died. As Knight, along with the third prisoner, Gina DeJesus, helped with the delivery, in a inflatable pool set up in the house, it looked as though that might happen: the newborn girl stopped breathing. Knight breathed into her mouth, and they both lived.

Castro appeared in court on Thursday; his bail was set at eight million dollars, an amount beyond his means. (“The man doesn’t have any money,” his court-appointed lawyer said, according to Reuters.) He had been unemployed since last November, and, based on accounts of his employment record, one wonders why it took so long. Another question is whether his financial troubles—the house with the chains in the basement was in foreclosure—might have eventually pushed the women’s situation to a deadly crisis. Perhaps there was a sense of that already, that Castro might dispose of them and disappear with the little girl; remarkably, his friends recall seeing him with the child, without ever figuring out where she came from. Castro is facing three charges of rape but four for kidnapping, counting Berry’s daughter; he hasn’t yet entered a plea. [Update: The Cuyahoga County prosecutor said that there might be additional charges related to what he called “each act of aggravated murder he committed by terminating pregnancies.”] Castro’s DNA has been taken to confirm his paternity, in this case a technical term.

The details that have come out—the way that the little girl wasn’t told the other women’s names, the cakes they got on the anniversary of their abductions, the allegations that Castro abused and even abducted his wife and their daughters—are part of the terrible intimacy of this story. The assessments and charges and evidence-gathering have, at least, a certain rhythm, unlike the many calculations the women would have had to make, as captives for a decade, to stay alive. On Monday, Berry took a risk and got her arm through the front door, and managed to get the attention of strangers.

Their return has a certain structure, too, at least in the case of two of the women. As unfathomable as the rest of their lives may be, the families of DeJesus and Berry fell into a ritual of welcome: calls, hugs, banners, welcomes, balloons—armfuls of balloons, filling the porch, enough, in the cartoon version of this story, to carry the houses away. For Knight, the moment has had different tinges to it. She stayed in the hospital longer than the other two. She is older than they are—thirty-two now—and the family that was there to greet her was never unanimously convinced that she hadn’t just run away. Her mother, Barbara, said she kept looking for her, if sporadically (she’d moved to Florida). The five miscarriages were not Michelle’s only pregnancies; she had a baby boy as a teenager, while living in her mother’s house. According to the Plain Dealer, “Barbara Knight said that among her own greatest regrets was becoming involved with an abusive man, whom, she believes, injured her toddler grandson—spurring a chain of events that led Michelle to lose custody of the child.”

Did she think her life was over then, when her son was taken away? It wasn’t, and it isn’t now. Lives can be complicated and people can get lost, even absent cable tragedies and dramas. (Another reminder of that is Charles Ramsey.) The pictures of Michelle Knight so far have been blurry and few: “The family has no other photo of Michelle to provide to the media,” the Plain Dealer noted. According to press reports, the bones in her face have been damaged by beatings over the years. But she survived them, with strength that came from somewhere; her face is hers now.

Photograph by Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty.