They kept the returned ones in a shoe box anyway.

That shoe box became the envelope Zachary handed Brian.

“Mom,” Nathan said from the back seat, “did we ever do anything wrong?”

I pulled into a well-lit gas station and turned around.

“No.

Not one thing.”

“Then why didn’t he want us?”

It was the old question, only now it came from a nearly grown boy with a medal around his neck.