He cupped her head between his hands, spluttered out another burst of grief, and did what had to be done.

Like with the bird, it was quick and painless. Suzanne had already known enough pain. She was with Jesus and the angels in Heaven now. She was happy, giggling, flying around with her new wings.

I love you, she whispered to Ronnie. You don’t have to be sorry. Thank you.

He was almost to the end of the block, lost among the throngs of shoppers, when Suzanne’s mother released a scream so loud, so shrill, so inhuman and raw in its shock and terror and grief and pain that it seemed like the entire city came to a stop because such a terrible, overpowering sound demanded that everything stop, and listen, and mark the moment, and always remember.

In the years to come, it would always be Suzanne to whom Ronnie would turn after taking the Hurting away from another child; it would always be Suzanne who would be there smiling at him, whispering how much she loved him, how it was okay; it would always be this quiet, fragile baby (who now couldn’t stop smiling) who would forgive him, each and every time.

* * *

By the time Lucy Thompson had met her future husband and married him and given birth to her daughter, Ronnie was sixteen and living in a group home near the East End of Cedar Hill. By then he had taken the Hurting away from seven children—all of them in pain, or living in fear: beaten by their parents, abused by relatives, raped by friends of the family…the horrors were numerous, and never-ceasing. With all of them, he Knew of no way out, and that each of them had been ruined forever. With each child Ronnie wept, and asked for both the child’s and Suzanne’s forgiveness; and, always, he received it.

After Suzanne, it occurred to him that there might be some people left behind who genuinely loved and cared about these children (although not enough to do anything to help them, assuming they even knew what was going on), so he began leaving notes with the bodies: I’m sorry.

And he signed every note: With Love, Uncle Ronnie.

“D’ya think it’s okay to do that?” he asked Suzanne.

Does it make it easier for you?

“Yeah, I think it does. I think…I think they need to know that I wasn’t being mean or nothing like that, y’know?”

I do, and I love you all the more for it. All of us love you, Ronnie. You made our Hurting stop.

“I wish I’d left a note for your mommy.”

Shhh, Ronnie; you don’t need to worry about that. I talk to her every night in her dreams. She knows I’m fine now. She’s not sad anymore, and neither am I. None of us are. You have to remember that, okay?

It helped—not much, but some. Despite the forgiveness and his talks with Suzanne and the others, his soul did not commune with the angels, did not fly on wings of song, did not feel cleansed or heroic or purified, but rather sat—as did he most of the time—in a sad, still, lightless isolated silence that could not be penetrated by any kindness or gesture of tenderness.