Sixteen months after Mason walked his sister to my porch, I sat in the gallery of the regional Superior Court and watched Evelyn answer for what she’d done.

Her lawyers had tried, at first, to build a defense out of grief — that a widow shattered by her husband’s death could not be held fully responsible, that the mind does strange things under such a loss.

It did not survive contact with the evidence.

Because grief does not explain a years-long paper trail of survivor benefits and insurance money bleeding steadily into gambling accounts while two children went hungry.

Grief does not keep a full pantry for oneself and an empty one for one’s kids.