He knew his father had been killed and that his uncle had done it; I would not lie to him, because lies were the family disease and I would not pass them down.

But he did not sit through the testimony, or see the photographs, or hear the recording of his father coughing in the dark.

He came for the verdict because he asked to, because at nine he had a fierce and specific need to hear a room full of adults say out loud that what happened to his dad was wrong, and to see that the world could still do something about it.

He heard the word guilty, and he nodded once, gravely, the way his father used to nod, and then he asked if we could go get pancakes.