I wanted the sentence to settle something.

Instead, I wondered what remembering required of him now.

Outside, Marjorie told me to keep dates as carefully as amounts.

Completed visits, missed arrangements, notice, school obligations.

None of that needed to become a diary written to make Daniel look worse.

It needed to say what had happened.

Elliot was already collecting something different.

At the school office, he saw a field-trip form still lacking the signature it needed.