We teach people that kindness deserves protection, that a good heart is worth defending with every unglamorous tool the law provides, and that being gentle and being a target are not the same thing and never had to be.

He hadn’t left me a toy.

He’d left me a weapon wrapped in cedar, and the trust that I would use it well.

On my way out to meet Mrs.

Gable I pass the portrait, and I no longer give the three polished faces at its center so much as a glance.

I look only at the quiet girl at the edge of the frame, twelve years old, half in shadow, watching everything.

I smile at her.

Then I go downstairs to save someone else’s grandfather.

THE END.