I thought the summer had brought my family closer. But after my grandkids went home, one small discovery made me question what had really been happening behind the scenes. The more I learned, the more I realized love could hide things just as easily as fear.
My grandson had carried the same little green backpack around my house for two months—to breakfast, the park, movie nights, everywhere.
Once, I moved it three feet so I could vacuum, and nine-year-old Ben appeared beside me before I’d even plugged the vacuum in.
“I’ll take it, Grandma.”
I’d laughed then.
The morning he went home, nobody was laughing.
My son, Adam, and his wife, Tara, had driven four hours to collect Ben and his seven-year-old sister, Sophie.
They’d asked me to keep the kids all summer because they were renovating their house.
“Too much dust,” Adam had explained in June. “We don’t want them breathing that stuff.”
