I stared into the depths of our backyard. Green. So many shades of green. Cicadas shrieked—tick tick tick—their song rising and falling. A single bird called out, telling her family it was dinnertime. Her call grew frantic and shrill. Then, in the distance, the raspy growl of a big cat.

I scurried inside, bolting the door behind me as if a cougar might figure out how to turn my door handle.

I found Emily crying in her room. “I’m sorry I pushed you. I panicked.”

She hid under the covers of her bed. It was hard being small. I didn’t want her to feel the shame that I had felt so deeply.

I sat on her bed and petted the curve of her back. “The butterfly is fine. He flew away,” I lied. “I was just worried you were going to stumble on him, so I pushed you to the side, but I didn’t mean to push you hard. I’m sorry.” It felt good to say sorry. My parents never said sorry. Another word, another deed, by which to measure myself. “Will you eat some milk and cookies with me?”

“OK,” she said, sniffling under the blanket. “I’ll bring the cookies up to your room and we can have a tea party. Will you set a blanket on the floor and put out your picnic plates?”

She pushed the blanket off, springing up with a smile as if she’d popped out of a cake. “Sure!”

“I’ll be up in a couple minutes.”

She was humming and digging in her closet by the time I closed her door.

Sawyer’s door was open a few inches. He was moving around in his room in that rough, impulsive way teenage boys moved. Closing drawers too hard. He wasn’t striving for obnoxious; it was a combination of testosterone and not realizing his body was bigger than he’d remembered.

I know I’m not your biological mom, but I’m here for you…

Nudging his door, I said, “Sawyer, would you like to have cookies with—” but my words caught.

His back to me, he was tucking a handgun into his jeans. He turned and flinched, alarmed to see me. In a flash, that fear turned to anger. “Can’t you knock?”

“I’m sorry.”

I should have said, Why do you have a gun?

He grabbed his phone off his dresser and was moving fast. “I gotta go.” He brushed past me in a whoosh of icy fresh deodorant, knocking me off balance, and rushed down the stairs.

I caught myself against the wall, broke out of my shock and followed him down. “Sawyer! What are you doing? Where did you get that?” By the time I got to the door, the screen slamming its frame, he was already sitting in the back of that same black pickup.