“No. Say it.”

She looked back at me.

“You can say his name.”

A week later, she brought a scrapbook.

We sat together while she showed me Ethan as a boy with uneven bangs he had cut himself, an old report card, and a drawing of a dog with three legs.

She told me he had once tried to build something out of leaves because he believed enough of them would hold him.

I laughed, briefly and unexpectedly.