“Can I stick my drawings on the fridge here?”

A thick knot rose in my throat, because of everything that small question contained — that in his old home, on his old refrigerator, there had been room only for Rosalind’s instruction lists, and never for a six-year-old’s drawings.

“You can stick up as many drawings as you want, sweetie,” I said.

“The whole door.

Every inch of it.”

He scrambled off his box and ran to dig out his crayons, and for a moment I was alone in the small quiet kitchen of my own home.

I put my palms flat on the clean, cheap counter, and I let myself cry, so he would not hear.