Beside him, sitting on the cold concrete, was a tiny boy in dinosaur pajamas with no shoes on. He was gripping Caleb’s sleeve with both hands, and Caleb had wrapped his own jacket around him. Behind them, a delivery truck sat crooked across the road with its hazard lights flashing, and the driver stood in the street, pale and shaking. Caleb looked at me and said quietly, “Don’t yell, Mom. Loud scares him.”

“That’s my grandson, Theo,” Marcy whispered, grabbing my arm. “He doesn’t talk. He got out while I was on the phone.” Then she pointed at the truck’s bumper, and I saw a long skid mark ending only feet from where my son was standing. “Ask him what he did before the truck stopped,” she said. Caleb looked down at his shoes and whispered, “I broke the rules, Mom.”