He had built an entire philosophy to keep the guilt at bay, and at the center of it sat a single load-bearing assumption: that Gideon was there, that Gideon had it covered, that the parents were fine.
Kick out that one beam and the whole comfortable structure came down.
Which is exactly what a man like Gideon understood — that his brother wanted, more than almost anything, to be told he could stop worrying.
Ezra hadn’t been robbed only of money.
He’d been robbed with his own longing, handed back to him as reassurance.
Chapter 3 — What Problems?