He leaned against my shoulder and let me show him where the letters belonged.

I left the word up on the screen after he went to bed.

There are days when being a parent feels like pulling someone out of a burning building.

Far more often, I was discovering, it means making sure they can ask a question without being scared of the answer.

PART 5

The sheriff’s investigators returned the next Tuesday, not to arrest anybody, but to take pictures of the shed.

I waited outside the gate while one deputy measured the doorway and another photographed the empty floor.