So I did the one thing I could do.

I knelt down in front of him, at his level, and I made my voice as warm and ordinary as I could manage, because whatever the adults in that room had done, none of it was his.

“Hey, sweetheart,” I said.

“There are fresh cookies on the kitchen counter, the good kind.

Why don’t you go pick out the biggest one for yourself?

Go on.” And Leo, relieved to be released from the strange grown-up tension, slid off the sofa and padded away down the hall, and I did not let anyone speak again until I heard the kitchen door swing shut behind him.