Then there was nothing, and Josie wondered if he had gone upstairs or just forgotten to shut the front door, but then she stood and saw him standing outside her room. He was wearing overalls and a white cotton T-shirt, and he held a long piece of green yarn. He pinched the ends and stretched it wide in front of himself. “This string is two feet eight inches,” he said. “Birds can use it to build their homes.”

She didn’t know what to say, and she stood there until he brought his hands together and asked her where she was going.

“I’m moving … I’m not … I’m not going to live here anymore.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why?” She almost laughed. “Because it’s time for me to move.”

He was staring at the yarn in his hands, rolling it slowly between his palms like dough. “No,” he said.

This was not the reception she had been expecting, and she realized that in her head, she had played this scene as if he were an adult. In it, he looked at her guardedly, and when she offered her apologies, he merely nodded and left the room. “Tyler,” she tried again. She had practiced on the plane, saying it over and over in her head. “Tyler … I’m … I’m sorry,” but it seemed almost laughable now. She felt the deep throb of the sadness she had been carrying radiate through her chest.