It has to be actively taken from him, named as false, refused on his behalf, or he will pick it right back up.

Caleb had spent three years, since his father died, slowly convincing himself that the weight of our household was now his to carry, that being the man of the house meant becoming responsible for everything, that a ten-year-old and then a thirteen-year-old could and should shoulder an adult’s burdens.

And that belief, however brave, however loving, was a kind of poison, and it would have gone on hurting him long after this particular crisis passed, would have shaped him into an anxious, over-responsible adult who did not know how to let anyone help him, unless I pulled it out by the root right then.

So I held his face and I told him the truth as plainly as I could.