Don’t trust anyone around you.

Please wait for me until I come back.

I read it, and read it again, and my hands began to shake against my knees.

Because in that moment the whole afternoon in the courtroom turned inside out, and a cold understanding came over me that took the air out of my lungs: my son had never betrayed me at all.

My twelve-year-old had walked into something far more dangerous than I could have imagined, and he had just handed me the proof of it, folded into a hug.

Wait for me. I turned the two words over in the back of that taxi and they rearranged the past week entirely.