What does that mean?”

“It means they’re hoping we’ll settle.

It means they don’t want to set foot in a courtroom.” The pen tapped once.

“It means we’ve got work ahead of us, and not much time to do it.”

When I hung up, Helen laid the timeline flat on the counter and smoothed it out with her palm.

Then she picked up the medical capacity form Thomas had copied for us, the one with the doctor’s signature and Walter’s bold handwriting across the bottom.

She ran her finger slowly over his name, the way she used to trace the letters in my baby book.