She held it up proudly.

In bright, bold wax crayon she had drawn four figures holding hands in front of a big yellow house with a red roof — me, and Hazel, and Kelly, and Fiona — with a large golden dog standing beside us, all of it under an enormous, beaming sun.

And across the top of the page, in her careful, unsteady, six-year-old letters, she had written three words: OUR REAL HOME.

My brother, who had come out to say goodbye before a grocery run, leaned down and studied the drawing with tremendous seriousness.