It was, in retrospect, exactly the right instinct and I very nearly failed to act on it in time.

The something else did come, only a few weeks later, in the form of a muddy, torn, frightened boy in my hallway, and even then I let him go up to his shower.

I have wondered whether I was too gentle, too respectful of his silences, whether a harder mother would have gotten the truth out of him weeks sooner and spared him the footbridge.

But I have made my peace with it.