My six-year-old nephew dragged his broken leg across seven blocks of pavement to reach my porch, with his starving three-year-old sister clinging to his shirt.

By the end of the first week, Peter had used up his paid time off, moved his tools into the hallway closet to make space for Lily’s clothes, and learned the difference between the cry she made from hunger and the one she made from waking up alone.

He also learned that Drew apologized whenever Peter bought groceries.

“You don’t have to keep saying sorry,” Peter told him one afternoon while helping him balance on crutches from the thrift store.

Drew kept his eyes on the floor. “She said food’s expensive.”

Peter’s mother, Linda, drove down from Delaware County that evening with casseroles and the strained face of a woman trying to rearrange the facts of her own family. She had defended Reena at first. Not fiercely, but enough to wound. Grief had made everyone softer toward a widow and harder on a child who looked scared all the time.

Then Peter showed her the basement photographs. Linda sat at the kitchen table so long without speaking that Lily eventually climbed into her lap with a toy spoon.

“I told myself Reena was overwhelmed,” Linda said at last. “I told myself Aaron would have known if something was wrong.”

Peter set down Drew’s medication cup. “Maybe he did know something was wrong.”

Linda looked at him, and for the first time her loyalty shifted all the way. “Then find out.”

An hour later Mateo arrived after work, still in steel-toe boots, and stood awkwardly in the doorway holding his baseball cap. He looked from the children to Peter and said, “Aaron was trying to leave her.”