He broke into a happy sprint across the green lawn, racing to the passenger side of my sedan and waving his arms wildly for me to unlock the doors.

I stopped on the concrete walk for a brief, grateful moment, watching my nine-year-old son soak up the golden autumn sunshine.

Three months earlier, this same frightened child had stood in our kitchen offering his whole life savings in exchange for just four more weeks of a roof over his head and his mother’s simple love.

Today he was driving a hard bargain over ice cream sizes, looking forward to shopping for new baseball cleats and making plans to teach his baby sister to play catch in the yard.

He still carried scars from the betrayal he had lived through, and there would surely be days ahead when old fears would whisper lies in his ear again.