While three grown men laughed and pinned him down, my eight-year-old son was nearly b:eat:en to d:ea:th in his grandfather’s driveway. Rushing to the emergency room, all I heard the doctors whispering were terrifying words like brain swelling and concussion…
blood money, Toby. You inherited the means to heal everyone else who has ever been hurt in the dark.”
Toby absorbed this with the profound, ancient wisdom that only children who have seen the abyss possess. He walked over to an old bicycle Lena had found in the garage—the one we had spent the morning messily painting a vibrant, chaotic yellow.
