My mother knows I came to see you.

She wants to meet you when you’re ready.”

I nodded, and only when he was gone did I begin to cry.

Not because I had lost him again.

Because, for the first time in thirty-one years, I knew where my son was going when he left a room.

PART 5

My name is Evelyn Mercer, and until that afternoon I had divided my life into two unequal pieces: the few hours I held Tobias and everything that came afterward.

I had become a school librarian.