At Christmas a card came in the mail addressed to MASTER CALEB REED in her careful slanting hand. Danielle opened it first, at the kitchen counter, while Caleb was at school. Inside was a twenty-dollar bill and a card with a cardinal on it, and on the inside, under the printed verse, four words: Grandma loves you. Always. Danielle stood holding it for a while. Then she put the twenty back in and sealed the envelope again with a little tape and put it under the tree with the others, and when Caleb opened it on Christmas morning he read the four words several times and then folded the card very small and put it in the pocket of his pajamas, and Marcus later found it in his room, inside the green stegosaurus bag, next to the flashlight.
In January his mother called him on a Sunday night.
"What do I have to do," she said.
He did not pretend not to understand. He had talked about it with Danielle, and with Theresa Lin, many times, and he told her what they had decided. If she wanted to see Caleb, she would have to tell him herself, to his face, that what she had done was wrong, and that it was not his fault. Danielle would be there. Marcus would be there. And she would have to say it without a but.
"Without a but," his mother repeated.
"No but, Mama. Not I was wrong but I was scared. Not I was wrong but you shouldn’t have pointed that gun. Just that it was wrong. And that it wasn’t his fault."
The line was quiet for so long that he thought the call had dropped.
"You understand what you’re asking me," she said at last. "If I say that, about him. Then I’m saying it about you, too. About all of it. Your whole life." Her voice was very low. "If I say that it was wrong, then what was it all for?"