So the doors stayed open.

I left the hall light on.

And I lay awake that first night in a house full of propped-open doors and softly burning nightlights, listening to two children breathe down the hall, and I made them a silent promise that in this house the dark would never again be something that happened to them.

Chapter 6 — The Pantry

The food took longer, and it took patience, and it taught me more about those three years than any report ever could, though it never once required a single detail.

Ollie was careful about food in a way that told its own quiet story.