“We’d be grateful.”

The hardest part of helping someone, I was learning, was resisting the urge to turn them into a lesson.

Clarence was not a saint, Emily was not heartless, and Rebecca was not a cautionary tale.

They were neighbors whose needs and mistakes had collided.

That afternoon I crossed Maple Street with a box of printed donation receipts.

Clarence was on his porch, looking out toward Rebecca’s house.

Eli ran across the grass holding a picture he’d drawn of five people around a table.