Guilty on all counts — the fraud, the attempt on his father, and the murder of his brother — and a sentence of life without parole.

As they led him out in chains I felt no triumph, only a heavy sorrow for a family that had chosen greed over grace so many times it forgot there had ever been a choice.

I had worried, through all of it, about what the process would do to Cody — whether dragging a nine-year-old through the machinery of a murder trial would carve a wound deeper than the crime.

So I did the one thing I had learned to do well: I gave him only what he could carry, and I let him choose the size of it.