She knew his drinking was bad.
She knew because her chest hurt when he walked through the door, glassy eyed and stumbling over non-existent obstacles. She knew because she wanted to cry when he looked at her, whether he was smiling or frowning. She knew because she could hear Mommy crying softly in her room after he had passed out.
But he hid his bottles in her toy box and told her that she mustn't tell, she was 'Daddy's good little girl'.
She wanted to be good, she wanted her Daddy to love her.
The dissonance bothered her, even then. What was labelled 'good' felt wrong, but what felt right would cause trouble, would label her as 'bad'. Why didn't people say what they meant? Why, if you used certain words, in a certain way, did it create completely the wrong picture without necessarily being an outright lie?
It made her listen ever more carefully, to try to understand what someone really meant when they spoke, to understand how they used language to create the picture they wanted, to work out how she could understand what it was that they were not saying.
It eventually drew her into her chosen profession, studying the emotiveness of language, the clues within the speech that told a truer story. Association with Cal taught her the visual cues that further developed the unfolding picture.
Cal called her a lousy liar, she was quite happy to acknowledge it. To her, it would never be a bad thing. But she could always tell if someone was lying. She might not acknowledge it, or challenge them regarding it, but she always knew. After all, she had spent her whole life learning how.