Why had an abandoned child appeared precisely during the six days I was unreachable.

I answered everything truthfully, and truthfully I had no answers, and I could see how it looked.

The boy gave the authorities no name.

He answered politely when offered water or food, but went silent whenever anyone asked where he came from.

Before they drove him away, the senior social worker told me, sternly, that until they established his identity, I could not assume this child had anything to do with my family.

I went back into my empty house after midnight, and I opened a dusty box in my closet that I had avoided for seven years, and I took out my son’s death certificate, and I read every line.