He unlocked my handcuffs and sat down across from me.

“Brenda, why did you do this?” he asked.

I looked him straight in the eyes.

“Nobody was saving him,” I said.

“I reported it seven times,” I said.

“Why didn’t anyone help?” I asked.

Greg looked down at his hands on the table. He sighed and leaned in close.

“His dad is the deputy chief,” he whispered.

“Nobody wanted to touch it,” he said.

He couldn’t look me in the eye after he said it.

So now I am the one facing a trial next month. I might lose my pension, my clean record, and my freedom.

Toby is still in that house, and I am forbidden from going within five hundred feet of him.

Every night I sit in my living room and look at that empty blue box of macaroni sitting on my counter.

I just pray to God that he is still breathing.