I Found My Neighbor’s Twin Toddlers Hiding in My Empty Trash Can—Then Their Mother Told Me Why They Had Been Sent to Find Me

That I might have seen something.

That if I had offered a loaf and asked one more question, the girls would not have needed a bin.

Then I remembered Derek beside Hannah in the driveway, and the way her eyes had dropped when I waved.

I did not know what knocking would have caused.

I could not improve the past by inventing a version in which one neighborly visit safely solved everything.

Still, I put the recipe away without making the bread.