He stopped checking the locks.

I stopped waking to the sound of cups that weren’t there.

We didn’t forget what happened; we simply built a life roomy enough that it no longer lived in every corner.

The healing was not a straight line, and one afternoon on my parents’ porch, months before the move, my son said the thing I have carried longest.

He was staring at his shoes, stirring a hot chocolate he wasn’t drinking.

“Mom,” he asked, “was Dario ever a good person?