Denise paused.

“Different things.”

Then she said the word I would come to hate.

“Luke is complicated.”

Something sharp rose inside me.

I remembered Noah after his father died.

He had stopped speaking in class.

Teachers who didn’t understand his grief started calling him difficult.

Complicated.

As if a grieving eleven-year-old were an inconvenience.

Over the years, I had learned that adults often call children complicated when the child’s pain makes the adult uncomfortable.

“I still want to meet him,” I said.

Luke stood when I approached him.

That surprised me.

He was nearly as tall as I was.

“Hi,” I said. “I’m Caroline.”

He gestured toward the empty chair beside him.

“You can sit here, ma’am.”

I smiled.

“I’m forty-seven. Not ninety.”

His mouth twitched.

“I wasn’t implying anything.”

“You absolutely were.”

For the first time, he smiled.

A real smile.

For one second, he stopped looking like a teenage boy attached to a case file.