He had every reason to fall apart — a mother the doctors called gone, a father who forgot him, a house gone silent and strange.

A child in his position was entitled to scream, to cry loudly, to demand that some adult come and fix the unfixable.

And instead, this small boy had made a series of decisions that would have done credit to a soldier.

He had decided to believe his mother was in there when every grown-up told him otherwise.

He had decided to keep that belief secret, because some instinct told him it was safer kept.

And now, feeling the first proof that he’d been right all along, he had decided — instantly, without being told — to make no sound, so that the men who wished his mother harm would not know she was surfacing.