“I thought he was in a hurry to go,” Everett sighed. He looked off into the distance for a second, as if contemplating this matter. Then, without another word, he clapped the heel of his hand against the steering wheel and the blare of the car horn made Shawna and me jump in our seats. Even Janet looked startled.

Gabriel let out a wail. His sniffles turned to tears then, and I saw a dark spot bloom on the front of his pants, even as his fingers continued to work on the zipper. He relieved himself of whatever urine was left in his bladder and then returned to the car. He was crying, quietly but for the sniffles.

“That’s just filthy,” Everett said when Gabriel started to climb back into the backseat.

“Shawna,” Janet said. “Let Gabriel sit on your cardigan. We don’t need piss on the seats. If I’d known we’d have to be potty training when we agreed to take him in . . .”

Gabriel sat on Shawna’s sweater, his eyes bleary and repentant. Everett’s cologne masked the smell of urine and was more offensive anyway. When we arrived at the house, Janet instructed us to change out of our church clothes. Gabriel brought his soiled pants to the sink in the mudroom. He stood on a stool and scrubbed powdered detergent on his pants, dunked them into hot water, and scrubbed some more. He’d leaned so far into the deep sink that it seemed he might fall into it. And, in fact, he looked like he wouldn’t mind disappearing into the murky water.

We were sent to the backyard, where Shawna showed me how to pull weeds from the soil so that none of the root was left behind. Janet had on a pair of gardening gloves and was weeding the flower beds in front of the house. We’d been tasked with the backyard.

The early afternoon sun warmed my skin. Beads of sweat gathered down the middle of my back and along my forehead. We were on our knees, listening to the faint sounds of birds chirping and children playing somewhere out of view. Gabriel worked between us, Shawna filling the silence with small conversations about subjects she seemed to pluck from the sky.

“Do you think rabbits live back here? I’ve never seen one, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t. I did see a groundhog once.”

Gabriel said nothing. I wished I could do something to lift his spirits.

“You are fast,” I told him, looking at the pile of uprooted weeds in front of his feet. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He was so young and yet still older than my brother would ever be.

“No, I’m not,” he muttered. “She’ll probably get mad at me for this too.”