By four o’clock in the afternoon, the sun was laying warm yellow squares across the oak floor of my home office.

The wooden desktop was completely bare except for my black desk lamp and a clear glass jar of yellow pencils.

Evan stood next to the open closet door holding a sturdy corrugated cardboard storage box.

I picked up the blue plastic three-ring binder from the center of the desk blotter.

Inside the plastic sleeves were twenty-four months of notarized bank ledgers, the electric bill transfer receipts, and the stamped school district dismissal papers.

I flipped to the last page and looked at the blue ink stamp reading VOID across the front of the intake copy.