“Our father always bought him out of trouble before the neighbors could call the sheriff.”

“What kind of trouble, Mara?” Sloan asked, her eyes fixed on me while her hand began to write in the flip-book without her looking down at the paper.

“He broke a boy’s collarbone in high school over a borrowed truck,” I said.

“My father paid the medical bills, and the family withdrew the complaint.”

Sloan’s pen moved in steady, silent loops.

“And your mother?” Harris asked, clicking his silver ballpoint once.