My son sobbed the entire drive to his grandmother’s house. “Daddy, please don’t leave me here.” My wife snapped, “You’re babying him.” I left him anyway. Three hours later, a neighbor called. “Your little boy ran to my house shaking. He’s hiding under my bed and won’t stop crying.”

By twelve, Owen had developed a dry sense of humor that delighted and occasionally alarmed his teachers. He liked science fairs, old black-and-white monster movies that paradoxically no longer frightened him, and practicing free throws in the driveway until dusk. He still had nightmares sometimes, but less often. He still slept with his door open. He sometimes froze when adults argued. But he also argued back, loudly and impressively, when he thought something was unfair. William considered that progress.

On the sixth anniversary of the night he escaped Sue’s shed, William and Owen visited Genevieve Fuller for dinner. Her house looked much the same—warm yellow kitchen light, lace curtains, a smell of garlic and rosemary rising from the oven. She had set the table with the deliberate niceness of someone who considered attention a form of love.

They ate roast chicken and potatoes and pie afterward. At some point, conversation drifted—as it sometimes did on anniversaries no one wanted to call anniversaries—toward that night.