My stomach tightened until she explained that Sadie had been drawing hospitals in nearly every free-writing exercise.

Nothing was wrong with the drawings themselves, she said.

They were a way for Sadie to organize something frightening.

In the little office beside the library, I sat on a child-sized chair while Ms.

Reyes described how children sometimes ask the same question repeatedly, not because they failed to understand the answer, but because they’re testing whether the answer is still safe to believe.

Sadie had asked three times whether her father’s illness was contagious and twice whether he might get sick because she’d been angry at him.