“Mom!

There’s a window in the bathroom!” “There is.” “That’s fancy.

You can take a bath and know if it’s raining.” He laughed at his own joke, and I stood in the little hallway and realized how long it had been since I’d heard the light, silly, unguarded version of my son, and how much I had missed him.

Declan spent those months answering for the child-endangerment charge; his custody of Toby and Noelle was reassigned, and he was ordered into parenting classes.

The kids visited us anyway.