“Brannan sent Katie to the school therapist, once.”

This is a factual claim about Brannan’s past related to her previous employment

“She hasn’t seen any other therapist, or a therapist trained to deal with PTSD – Brannan knows what a difference that makes, since the volunteer therapist she tried briefly herself spent more time asking her to explain a “bad PTSD day” than how Caleb’s symptoms were affecting the family.”

This is an evaluative claim of the general use of therapy for cases of PTSD by Brannan based on her past stated position as a school therapist.

“Certainly she seems better than some other PTSD vets’ kids Brannan knows, who scream and sob and rock back and forth at the sound of a single loud noise, or who try to commit suicide even before they’re out of middle school. Caleb spends enough time worrying that he’s messing up his kid without a doctor saying so.”

This is a comparative claim of a case of PTSD by association to other more extreme cases of what it Brannan has seen the effects of PTSD do to other kids

“Brannan is a force of keeping her family together. She sleeps a maximum of five hours a night, keeps herself going with fast food and energy drinks, gets Katie to and from school and to tap dance and art, where Katie produces some startlingly impressive canvases, bright swirling shapes bisected by and intersected with other swaths of color, bold, intricate.”

This is an evaluative claim about Brannan’s role in her family and what she does to assist in her family’s wellbeing, as well as an evaluative claim of Katie’s canvases in school

“his regimen of 12 pills—antidepressants, anti-anxiety, sleep aids, pain meds, nerve meds, stomach meds”

A categorical claim of some examples of the 12 pills he takes

“She used the skills she learned as an assistant to a state Supreme Court justice and running a small newspaper to navigate Caleb’s maze of paperwork with the VA, and the paperwork for the bankruptcy they had to declare while they were waiting years for his disability benefits to come through. She also works for the VA now, essentially, having been—after a good deal more complicated paperwork, visits, and assessments—enrolled in its new caregiver program, which can pay spouses or other family members of disabled vets who have to take care of them full time, in Brannan’s case $400 a week.”

Both a factual claim of Brannan’s positions and work she has done as well as evaluative claims on what that work has helped with and what her consist of