I slowly rubbed my injured arm over my nightshirt, nervous. It was that I didn’t know what to expect—what Andre’s reaction would be when he came out from there and showed me those big blue eyes reddened from crying. Or rather, I didn’t know how I was going to react when I saw him and suddenly felt things I had spent more than a year trying not to experience again.
I swallowed saliva, impatient. He came out and sat back on his heels near me, his knuckles resting on the rug.
“…Before, I was afraid I wouldn’t see Mom again,” he told me softly, in a very low voice. “Now I know I’m never going to see her again. And my dad is to blame for her being dead. I told him we should go back for her, but he didn’t want to listen! It’s his fault!”
“No, Andre, don’t say that,” I begged him, even though
