I’d dragged the empty pine shelf in from the garage on Friday afternoon and lined his chapter books up along the bottom shelf.

The dark rectangular mark on the closet floorboards had disappeared under two coats of clear sealer I’d put down before dinner.

Bennett reached into his plastic bin and pulled out three more stars, holding them out on his open palm.

“Aunt Lauren didn’t touch these books, did she?” he asked.

“No, sweetie,” I said.

“Nobody touched your books.”

He looked at the empty closet floor, then back at the wall, where the blue paint was going on smooth and wet under my roller.

“The blue paint’s dry now, Mom,” he said, pointing at the corner by the window where I’d started forty minutes before.