“Nobody asked anything else.”

I drove past the coastal pines lining the edge of the school zone, keeping my right hand on the wheel while Matty read the first paragraph of his essay out loud in the quiet cab.

We pulled into our gravel driveway at three in the afternoon, the front tires crunching over the stones before the engine went quiet.

Matty jumped out of the passenger side with his plastic water bottle in one hand and his school backpack over his shoulder.

I sat down on the top step of the front porch and stretched my legs out over the wooden boards.