The room was the room of a boy who liked dinosaurs and space and had not yet decided which. There was a poster of the solar system over the desk with Pluto still on it, because Caleb believed Pluto had been treated unfairly. There was a shelf of plastic dinosaurs arranged by period. There was a hamster cage on the dresser, with Professor Nibbles asleep in a pile of shredded paper, and a lamp shaped like the moon that glowed a soft gray-white when you touched it. Danielle’s half-packed duffel bag sat by the closet with a pair of sneakers sticking out of the top.
"Is Grandma in trouble?" Caleb said.
"Grandma’s going to stay with Aunt Bernice for a little while."
"Because of me."
"No." Marcus turned so he could see his son’s face. "Not because of you. Because of what Grandma did. That’s different. Do you understand how that’s different?"
Caleb thought about it. He was a boy who thought about things, who asked follow-up questions, who had once, at five, interrupted a pastor in the middle of a sermon to ask how Jesus could be in heaven and in his heart at the same time if his heart was inside his body.
"I pointed the gun at the police," he said.
"I know you did."