The smell hit me on the step.

Sour milk, and beneath it something older and sweeter, the garbage piled up by the hallway.

Inside, a single lamp was on in the living room.

A bowl of cereal had dried to the bottom on the coffee table.

“Daddy.”

Micah came out of the hall hugging an empty yellow cereal box to his chest with both arms.

I knelt, and he walked into me and didn’t cry, which was worse.

“Where’s Elsie?”