But it was not empty.

It had, if anything, become more of a home than it had ever been.

I had not planned to start it.

In the raw months right after the trial, I wanted only to be left alone, to let the house go silent and grieve in it.

But the letters started coming — from people who had read about my father’s case in the local paper, strangers, mostly elderly, writing in shaky hand to tell me that the same thing had happened to them.

A grandson with a power of attorney.