He got his son, Caleb, out.

And then he went back in for Lily.” Arthur’s voice caught, and he cleared his throat.

“He was too late.

The only thing he was able to save from her room was that dress.” I will not describe more of it than that, because some griefs are too sacred to render in detail, and a father losing a five-year-old child is one of them.

I only sat there, holding the small red dress, and let the tears come, and felt my own grief for my mother reach out across the years and touch the ancient, agonizing sorrow that had been sewn, I now understood, into every single thread of the garment in my hands.