I also asked him about practice, homework, and whether he wanted time alone.

His brothers did not become his responsibility because he had been the first to see the packed bag.

One evening he handed me the schedule and said a date looked wrong.

It was.

I had copied it into the next week.

“Good catch,” I said.

He grinned, then went to finish something that had nothing to do with our family case.

I liked seeing that almost as much as the day he asked to throw away the box.