I want that on the record.

Every one of those thoughts felt like a betrayal of the good, quiet, hardworking boy I knew my son to be.

But I could not, standing there, make the pieces fit together any other way, and the not-knowing was unbearable.

I have since felt a deep and lasting shame about the story my mind built that night, about how readily it reached for the darkest explanation, about the fact that I stood in my own kitchen and half-believed my good, gentle son might be caught up in something criminal or dangerous.

He deserved better than my suspicion.