“I don’t know.

Dad used to say if I got into real trouble, I’d have to learn to handle it alone.”

His father had moved out three years before and now called mostly on birthdays.

I sat beside the bed.

“You are responsible for what you did,” I told him.

“And you’re not alone.

Those things are not opposites.”

He cried again, quietly this time, with his forehead against my shoulder.