Three days after his father’s arrest, Trent had thrown his gym bag into an old blue sedan and driven off without a word to anyone on the street.

Emily pressed the wet dirt down around the third root ball with her gloved hands.

“The soil’s good here, Dad,” she said.

“It is,” I said.

“It just needed some time to settle.”

She wiped her forehead with the back of her sleeve and reached for the next bundle of roots.

The blue leather MMA gloves were long gone from our lawn, handed over to the township police along with the forged property survey map.

By eleven thirty the morning sun had climbed over the tops of the oaks lining the street.