Not the notebook, not the photograph, none of it.

You are twelve years old.

Protecting this family was my job, and your father’s job, and we are the ones who failed at it, not you.

You should have been able to just be a kid this whole time.

I am so sorry that you couldn’t be.”

And at that, my brave, watchful, meticulous boy, the little investigator who had tracked his own father for months and stared down a mistress in a ballroom full of strangers, finally came apart.

He cried, really cried, the way he had not let himself cry in months, great shaking sobs against my shoulder, and I understood that I was watching a burden lift off of him, one he had been carrying alone for far too long.