I’d just been through the whole routine the day before in the wake of Aaron Knicely’s arrest, and being back in the police station so soon and having to again talk for so long made me tired.

Very tired.

In the back of my mind, I worried about Amanda. Not that I didn’t think she could handle herself and stand up to anything anyone threw her way. I knew she could. I knew she could probably better than I could.

I hated to think of the strain brought on her by my friends, by people I’d brought into our lives. And I knew she didn’t want to be away from Henry that long. Neither one of us did.

In the early evening, Rountree came to me and said I could go. When I asked about Amanda, she told me to sit in the lobby and wait. She also told me that Dawn Steiner had been questioned thoroughly that morning. She was going to face charges of an undetermined severity.

“But her father is sick,” Rountree said. “Her whole story checks out. The baby, the adoptive parents. We’ll see.”

It took another thirty minutes for Amanda to emerge, looking tired but none the worse for wear. I stood up and hugged her as hard as I could. We were free to go home.

We were still going to have legal problems to resolve.

The police were discussing whether to charge me with tampering with a crime scene for taking the phone. They might charge Amanda for hacking into Jennifer’s Facebook account.

We’d deal with it as best we could.

And we’d deal with it as we began to repair the fractures the past days had brought to our marriage. That was the most essential piece of all.

Amanda went to pick Henry up—and give her parents a CliffsNotes version of the day’s events. I swung by our favorite Thai restaurant and got us carryout. I beat them home, but when I saw Amanda pull into our driveway, I nearly cried with relief. And I ran outside to get Henry out of the car and bring him inside.

We ate in stunned but happy silence. I think we both stared at Henry as much as we looked at our food. I couldn’t believe we were home and safe. The three of us.

When we were finished eating, I took Henry upstairs, changed him, and slipped his squirming body into his pajamas. I held him for a while, rocking in the rocker in the nursery, but spending the day with his hovering, smothering grandparents must have worn him out. He nodded off with ease and didn’t budge when I placed him in his crib.