That is a theft too, maybe the deepest one.

Evelyn had not only starved their bodies; she had stolen Mason’s childhood and spent it on Daisy’s survival, forced a little boy to grow up years too early to fill the hole where a parent should have been.

And he had done it.

That was the part that broke my heart and filled it with a fierce, aching pride at the same time — that this small person, given a burden no child should carry, had carried it, had kept his sister alive and gotten them both to the one door he could think of.

Watching him pat her back with the last of his strength, I made a vow, silent and total, right there on my living room floor.