“Yeah,” I said, afraid, then, that I’d made a bad mistake, prompted him to remember something he wasn’t ready to remember. He’d said he recalled everything, but how would he know whether his memories were incomplete? “Mr. Barrett. He hurt her, didn’t he? And you were so small and helpless compared to him, you couldn’t help her. That’s what started all of this. You—”

Solomon laughed. I was expecting a lot of responses, but not that one. “Is that what you think?”

I opened my mouth, but then I shut it. Because why did I think that? Why had I jumped to that conclusion? What evidence did I have?

Only the fact that Mr. Barrett was lying, and Solomon was afraid of him. And Solomon’s mom was in jail.

Rain coursed down his face, flattening his hair to his forehead. He looked like a little kid who had just climbed out of a swimming pool. But when he spoke, he sounded less like a child than he ever had before.

“That night,” Solomon said, and pain settled into my heart as he spoke, as his words unlocked memory.

That night. No one answers the door when I knock. Solomon’s mother’s car is gone from the driveway, but his stepfather’s is there. A big bright red pickup truck, like something from a cartoon, except the smell inside is bad, like wet, dirty clothes. I hate when Mr. Barrett takes us anywhere in it.

So. Fifty-fifty chance. Either Solomon is home with his stepfather, or out with his mother.

Bingo, I remember. Wednesday nights his mother plays bingo at the American Legion. Solomon loves the game, but hates the smoky room where they played it. So he’s probably home.

I go around to the back. It’s so dark there. I raise my camera to try to take a picture, but there is not enough light.

I open my mouth to call his name, and then decide not to. Solomon’s imagination is very vivid, and when he plays his weird little game—Darkside City, he calls it—he hates to be jolted out of it. So I shut my mouth and begin to explore the yard. All the places he could be hiding: the shed, behind the trees, under the patio furniture. Even though I’m pretty sure I know where he is. Where he always is.

I climb the rungs nailed into the side of the really big sugar maple at the far end of the backyard. It is easy, now. I remember how hard it had been, back when Solomon first moved into the house four years ago. How much smaller we’d been. How we always had to stretch to reach the next rung. My camera swings slightly, around my neck, as I climb.