I did not understand, until that courtroom, that he had seen straight through the performance the entire time, and had been quietly conducting a performance of his own.
That is the thing no one tells you about children.
They are watching you far more closely than you are watching them.
They know exactly when the story you are telling doesn’t match the look on your face.
Rory had known we were in trouble for a long time.
He had simply decided, in the private way of a child who loves you, not to add his fear to yours.
Chapter 3 — The Shirt
The shirt Dunmore was about to hold up to the court was the reason I had nothing left to pawn.
Four months earlier, with the cupboards nearly empty and Rory’s birthday coming, I had done the last thing I had sworn I would never do.
My grandmother had left me a locket — a small vintage filigree thing on a thin gold chain, with her photograph inside, black and white, her smile fierce and timeless.