The turkey was a trap: Why I told my 9-year-old son to play dead during our family Thanksgiving

you tell me to stay still?”

I pulled him close. “Because sometimes, the only way to see someone’s true face is to let them think no one is watching.”

Noah looked out at the frozen lake. “I knew they were bad. I just didn’t know they were monsters.”

“The monsters are in cages now, baby,” I promised. But as I looked at my son—the boy who had pretended to continue reading …