“I know that,” I told her.

And I did know it.

But I also knew what I had felt sitting beside that window for an hour, and it was the first thing in three years that had felt like being awake.

Chapter 9 — Four Months of Visits

So I kept coming back.

Week after week, I returned to visit Silas — at the agency at first, and then, as trust was slowly extended to us, at libraries and diners and parks and on carefully supervised outings around town.

I kept waiting, honestly, for the difficult boy everyone had warned me about to finally surface.