When he was a little boy, I explained why the sky changed colors at sunset.

When he was a teenager, I explained why some friends were worth keeping and others were not. When he became a man, I explained that love did not mean allowing someone to walk all over you.

But he had stopped listening a long time ago. The doorbell rang again.

I walked past him and opened it myself. On the porch stood Marcus Bell, the boy who had once slept on a mattress in my living room because his own parents had changed the locks.

He was forty now, with gray at his temples and an expensive coat over a plain blue shirt.

He held no briefcase, only a small paper bag from a bakery and an expression I hadn’t seen since the night he learned his mother wasn’t coming back.

Behind him stood a woman in a dark coat. Her name was Officer Elaine Porter.

Marcus had suggested I request a police report and medical documentation, and when I called the nonemergency line that morning, an officer had agreed to meet me at a safe time.

“Good morning, Miss Loretta,” Marcus said. He had never stopped calling me that. Daniel stepped into the hallway.

“What’s this?”

“Someone to make sure your mother can tell her story without being interrupted,” Marcus replied.

Sloan appeared behind Daniel. Her cigarette was already between her fingers.

“Are you seriously bringing police into a family disagreement?” she demanded.

Officer Porter looked at the cigarette, then at my cheek.