“Caleb has to answer for what he did,” I said.

“You don’t know what they will do to him,” she whispered.

“Please, Mara.

For me.”

“I have to go, Mother,” I said.

I ended the call and laid the phone face down on the nightstand, the room returning to the dark.

I walked back into the living room, the floorboards cold beneath my bare feet.

The window looked out over the quiet Columbus street, where the streetlights threw yellow pools on the wet asphalt.