And I knew, kneeling there by the open trunk, that I could not argue him out of that.

You cannot talk a child back into trusting; you can only show him, over and over, a world that turns out to deserve it, until the bracing slowly stops being necessary.

So I did not oversell it.

I did not promise him it would be wonderful.

I just told him the plain true facts — beach, sandcastles, a grandmother who was real and near and waiting, whether he was ready to believe in her or not — and I got him and his sister into the car, and I trusted the next two days to do what my words could not.

It would take longer than that, in the end.