It had a small garden in front, and floors that held the morning light, and a backyard just big enough for the dog Rory had already started campaigning for.
It was ours.
No landlord could be paid to invent a reason to take it.
I would stand in the kitchen some mornings and simply listen to how quiet it was — not the anxious quiet of a place where you’re waiting for the next blow, but the ordinary quiet of a house where a child is safe.
And Rory was safe.
You could see it on him.
The dark smudges under his eyes were gone, and his cheeks had filled out and gone pink, and he ate three real meals a day and complained about none of them.
He had gotten loud again, in the good way, the way of a boy who no longer has to listen for footsteps behind him.
He rode his bicycle up and down the block until the streetlights came on.
He made a friend from three houses down.