Inside, the boys sat close, the way children do after having behaved too perfectly for too long. One leaned into her side. The other watched the buildings slide by through the tinted glass.
“Mom,” said the quiet one after a minute, “why were so many people there?”
She smoothed his hair. “Because grown-ups sometimes think a hard thing belongs to them if they can watch it happen.”
He frowned slightly, considering that. “Did we do something wrong?”
Her face changed then, the first real crack in her composure, not because of fear but because motherhood makes some questions land inside the chest like stones.
“No,” she said. “You did everything right.”
“Was Dad mad?”
She looked out the window at the city moving past. “Your father made choices,” she said carefully. “And today people had to see them.”
The taller twin, whose fingers always tightened around hers before asking the question he most feared, lifted his eyes to her. “Are we going home?”
That answer was more complicated.