the last time before you left.”
“She’s right,” Barry said quietly.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
Barry swallowed hard. “He wasn’t supposed to be there. I mean, your son.”
Karen started crying. The sound was raw and painful, the kind that comes from years of buried anger.
My hands gripped the edge of the table.
Barry continued. “Fifteen years ago, I got mixed up with some older boys. I was 11. My mom worked all the time. I pretty much raised myself, and when you’re a kid alone that much, you find ways to stay busy.”
“What are you saying?”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“The older boys liked picking on kids and getting them to do stupid things just for laughs. I wanted them to like me.”
I could hear Karen sniffling beside me, but I couldn’t look away from Barry.
“One afternoon, they told me to meet
