Together, Maya and Liam had assembled a portrait series and submitted it to a regional youth arts competition.

They had titled it Unfiltered.

Its centerpiece was a striking full-color portrait of Maya, standing in her yellow dress in our backyard, her birthmarks catching the light, her eyes looking directly into the lens with an absolute, unyielding authority, a girl not asking anyone’s permission to exist exactly as she was.

They had won first place in the high-school division.

Along with the award had come a three-thousand-dollar scholarship toward Maya’s upcoming freshman year in the state university’s art program, and a grant for Liam’s middle-school photography club to buy new darkroom equipment.