I thought of Walter’s notebook, of Jonah and the yellow bicycle, of my own son lifting rubble through the night.

“You can be part of a solution,” I said.

“But you don’t have to be the entire solution.”

That evening, I encouraged Gavin to tell Brenda about the forms and suggested Keisha could handle the housing questions.

He did.

Brenda listened more calmly than either of us expected and asked if he would like to help gather public information for the nonprofit’s approved volunteer program once he recovered.

Gavin said yes so quickly that we all laughed.