I looked down at my hands — scarred from the tools, rough from the wood, worn soft from years of holding small hands in the dark.

“For a long time I hated them for it,” I said.

“The system.

The people who drove us apart.

I spent a lot of nights wishing I’d been older, stronger, bigger — wishing I could’ve stood in front of that car and stopped it from taking you.” I looked at the patio doors, where five pairs of small shoes sat lined up on the mat.

“But I don’t think I’d have known how to build any of this, if I hadn’t spent so long in the dark myself.