But grief does strange things to the shape of a family, and in the wreckage of losing Mark, my little boy had reached for the heaviest thing in the house, the fear, and picked it up, because he could not stand to watch me carry it alone.

I did not see it.

I was too busy carrying the fear to notice the small hands that had reached under it beside mine.

Chapter 3 — I’m Going to Buy It Myself

So when Caleb came to me one afternoon and announced that he had found himself a Saturday job washing dishes at a neighborhood diner, I was not entirely surprised.

It was of a piece with everything else he had become.