Instead it was Chloe, alone, with nothing, who did the brave and honorable thing, and who did it so quietly that no one even knew she had done it until she was ten years in the ground.

Everyone else in her orbit, including the grown woman she confided in, failed in one way or another to protect her.

She protected everyone.

Chapter 9 — Before My Grandson Gets Here

Across the green expanse of the cemetery, I could see Noah trotting back toward us from the car, his crayon card held carefully in both hands, his small legs carrying him over the grass, and Sarah saw him too, and something in her went tight with alarm.

“Is he coming back?” she asked, and there was a strange, ancient fear in the question, the fear of a person who has spent years afraid of being seen.