I knew something was wrong the moment he came through the door.
Ethan moved through the world with the kinetic certainty of someone who had decided where he was going and intended to arrive there efficiently. Even tired, even hungry, even in the aftermath of a difficult day, his movement had purpose. He shed his bag at the door, which he always did, and his coat on the hook, which I had been reinforcing since Edinburgh. But he did not come to the kitchen, where I was, and he did not call out, which he always did, a report of the day delivered in the transition between school and home as reliably as a weather system.
He went to his room.
I waited three minutes. Then I went to his door and knocked.
“Come in,” he said. The voice of a child who was holding something.
He was on his bed wit
