He knew why I turned the hallway thermostat down during cold snaps. He noticed that the crispest apple always went in his lunchbox while the bruised ones stayed on the counter for me.

One evening he caught me at the kitchen table with a pile of unpaid bills spread in front of me.

“Are we in trouble?” he asked, standing there in his pajamas.

I flipped the papers over to hide the red numbers. “No, sweetie. I’m just deciding which one to deal with first.”

He climbed onto the chair next to mine. “Sometimes I do my easiest reading homework first,” he offered. “Maybe bills work the same way.”

I laughed, even with tears stinging behind my eyes. That was Toby. He could find a spark of hope inside a stack of overdue envelopes.