“You told him his mother stole him,” Jessie said, her voice shaking with a mix of anger and tears. “How could you do that to a baby?”

Clara looked at Jessie for a long moment, the bitterness in her eyes softening into something that looked terribly like regret. “I lost everything when I left. I just wanted a family again.”

We left her standing there in the doorway, the yellow porch light casting a long shadow behind her. Jessie packed up her things that very night, and she and Mason stayed with me until they found a new apartment on the other side of town.

Sometimes, when the wind blows hard against my living room window at night, I still look over at the photo of Carol on my mantel. I know Clara is still out there, sitting in that dark house behind the trees, holding onto twenty years of anger. But when I look at Mason sleeping peacefully on my couch, I know I did what I had to do to keep my family safe.