“You’re thirteen.”

And I stepped in, because the box was heavy and because I thought I was helping, and I said the sentence that I would remove from the record if I could remove one sentence from the record.

I said: “He sold his guitar, Mrs.

Lin.

And his console.

And his savings.”

Which is a kind thing to say about your son.

And which placed a debt of fourteen hundred dollars, and a child’s dismantled bedroom, and a sacrifice she had not asked for and could not undo, on a woman standing in her own hallway in her work scrubs at twenty past five on a Wednesday, with no warning, in front of her daughter, with the door open.