Let us start, as is most fitting, with the ending. Samuel Forte is strangling a man with his bare hands.

There is a scuffle. Legs kick at each other. Hands flail and nails, too sharp, stained yellow-black, scratch at each others faces, drawing blood. Blood. There is too much blood. There’s a gasping of breath, before it’s cut off together, and a face reddening, bulging. Eyes wide. A faint wheezing, then silence. Sam does not let go. He holds on tighter, relishing the feeling of the man’s clammy skin under his and how it grows stiff and tense as the minutes go by, until Sam realizes he is holding no more than a plastic doll, a heavy shell, something that once may have had a name. His muscles strain, then release, and the dead man slumps to the ground, staring at the sky, mouth half-open, an amalgamation of blue and purple and sickly yellow. 

Sam drags the body half behind the dumpster, leaving the legs sticking out, skinny dirt-covered blue jeans. It doesn’t matter. All he needs to do is get a couple of blocks away and then he’s free, like he always is, and they’ll chalk it up to what makes them feel the safest: gangs, bar fights, tough luck for the poor f*cker lying there, but for everyone else, what’s the harm in another one of the city’s sewer rats squashed underfoot?

This is not Sam’s first kill. It is far from it. He’s thirty-two now, been homeless for a while, been alone even longer. He takes no pleasure in it. It’s simply what needs to be done: when someone threatens you, steals your sh*t. It’s less complicated this way. He likes it quick, easy, a few minutes and then they’re gone. They won’t f*ck with him anymore. Problem solved.

Sam walks away, wiping the sweat and the blood off his hands onto his shirt, looking at the moon. Back to where he left his backpack, then further, walking until the streets get quiet and there’s only the faint shouts from far away and the occasional hum of a car turning the corner. It’s three in the morning by then, and he has no one to talk to but himself, so he lets his own humming fill the empty street with a beautiful music. 

Sam stops, eventually, at a bus stop a few miles from where he left the body. There’s another man there, staring out at the empty street. As Sam sits down, the man reaches out and latches a hand onto his wrist, nails sharp and stabbing.

“F*ck off,” Sam says. Grabs his hand away.

“Don’t you want to go back?” the man says. His face is ghostly in the cold yellow streetlight, his eyes black in shadow. Strangely, inexplicably, Sam thinks of something he hasn’t thought of in a long time: the eyes of an old black dog he had when he was younger, the feeling of a small hand brushing through soft fur, the lick of a tongue, memories so buried they were almost gone. Sam blinks them away.

“Hey,” Sam says, still calm but feeling the familiar prickling in his fingers, the itch to fight back. “I just want a place to sit, man. Leave me alone.”

“You can go back.” The man doesn’t look away. He leans in closer. “Don’t you want a second chance?”

Sam sits, weighing his options. It’s never worth it to get into something with a person like this; better to just find another place. As he moves to stand, heaving his backpack onto his back, the man grabs his arm, tight. 

“I have a gun,” Sam says. It’s not a lie. But he prefers to kill in other ways. Guns are loud; draw attention. Makes it more likely that he’ll be running until morning.

The man doesn’t let go. “You can do it all again,” he says.

Sam unzips his bag, one-handed, pulls out the gun, clicks off the safety. “Let go of me,” he says.

“Wouldn’t you like to see everything go away? Don’t you want to--”

“I’m f*cking warning you, man--”

“--Don’t you get it? This is your chance, Sam. This is your--”

At his name, Sam’s hand jerks, fires two shots into the man’s chest. He watches the body crumble to the pavement, watches the blood spread. He is struck with another memory-- hiding in a closet-- watching through a crack-- seeing the pool of blood stain the wood dark--

He clamps his hand on his knee to stop it from shaking. He lets the breaths come, one after another, until they steady, and until he has been sitting at the bus stop for longer than he should. He stands up and stashes the gun away. He turns to leave, letting his eyes skirt over the area, making sure no one’s seen his face.

There’s a rustling behind him. Then a voice-- familiar-- choked with blood--

“Sam, you can go back. You can go all the way to the beginning. You’ve ruined everything, but you can fix it now, you can--”

In an instant, Sam grabs the gun again and fires into the man’s head, two times, three, four, five, until his face is no more than a mass of bloody flesh. Then, before the man can wake up again, Sam runs. 

Sam runs until the bus stop is far out of view, and then farther. He is lopsided, looking behind him for traces of the man, but the night is dark and empty. He is alone. After he has run so far his legs have cramped and his stomach has twisted in on itself, he stops, panting heavy breaths, gasping for air. 

Then Sam sits down on a curb and steadies the shaking in his hands. He tells himself that he is hallucinating, that there was no man, no shots fired from the gun. He tells himself that he is safe. 

A door opens behind him, letting a thin ray of light peek out onto the sidewalk, then shuts. Someone is standing behind him. Sam knows it is going to be the man before he turns around. He tightens his grip on his bag, takes a breath, turns around--

It is a woman. A girl. Younger than him by far. Everything about her looks red in the light of the bar behind her-- her hair, her skin, her eyes. Her eyeliner is black and dramatic, a cat-eye, like his mother used to wear. “You okay?” she says. “You look exhausted.”

Sam doesn’t say anything. “Yes,” he says, and stands to leave. 

“Wait,” she says. “You look like you need a drink. I can make one hell of a cocktail.”

“I have to go,” Sam says.

“On me,” the girl says, and Sam can’t argue.

The bar is just closing, the last patrons filling the room with a haze of drunken laughter, their movements fluid and loose and wild. Two people press against each other at the back of the room. The music is quiet; the lights are dim. Sam can’t remember the last time he’s been to a bar. 

The girl makes him a drink that tastes sweet and sour at the same time. It reminds him of something. She smiles at him. “Rough day?” she asks him.

“Yes,” Sam says.

“Wanna tell me about it?”

“No.”

She turns around, takes one of the bottles from the shelf, tops off his drink. “I get the feeling you’ve been through a lot.”

“Yes,” Sam says.

“I bet you’d tell me I wouldn’t understand, huh?”

“Yes.”

“All right,” she says. She leans over the bar and looks at him, really looks at him. “I’m gonna take a shot here and guess-- tell me if I’m way off base here-- that you’ve f*cked a lot of things up in your life.”

Sam looks up from his drink. “Yeah,” he says. “I guess.”

“I’ll bet that you regret things. That you don’t want to remember things you should remember. That you haven’t been happy in a long time.”

“What?” Sam says.

“You look like you want to go back, Sam. Don’t you want to go back?”

Sam sets his drink down slowly. “Who are you?” he says, tone even. 

“I just need you to say yes, Sam,” she whispers. “All I need is for you to say yes.”

“Who the f*ck are you?”
“Imagine how much you could change if you could go back. Imagine how many lives you could save. You could do everything all over again.”

Sam means to stand up, but he doesn’t. He is frozen. “Leave me alone,” he says. “Leave me alone or I’ll-- I’ll--” Sam is bringing the gun out from his bag. He’s clicking off the safety. “I’ll--”

“You’re not going to shoot me again,” the girl says, leaning over the bar, wiping a glass with a cloth. She sets it down. “You know I can’t be killed. You couldn’t kill me at the bus stop and you can’t kill me here. I’m not trying to hurt you, Sam. I want to help. Just say yes.”

“No,” Sam says, voice shaking. “Leave me alone.”

“Sam--”

“Say one more thing and I’ll kill you.”

There is silence for a moment. 

Then the girl says, “Don’t you want to go back?”

Sam pulls the trigger and the girl’s brains spatter the mirror on the back wall. The shot is deafening indoors. The body slumps to the floor. Sam looks into the blood-stained mirror, wipes the warm flesh of the bartender off his face, meeting the eyes of a couple, frozen in fear at the back of the bar. A quiet whimper.

Before the body can stand up and chase after him, Sam grabs his bag and is out the door in an instant, letting it swing shut behind him, darting out into the night, letting the red lights of the bar fade away behind him. He does not hear footsteps following him, but as he runs-- the first rays of daylight peeking up over the buildings-- hands reach out to grab him, voices call, voices that he remembers,  his sister, his father, his mother as she bled out on the floor and the man that killed her, the social worker that squeezed his shoulder and said he was going to be okay, the friends he knew once and then left behind, the men he’s killed, the woman from the bar, the man from the bus stop. He runs from everyone he has ever known. He runs until he can’t anymore, and he is doubled over in a shadowed alley as the sun rises outside. 

There is someone walking up to him. Sam slumps against the wall, feeling the cold stone against his back. He lets his bag fall to the floor. The man stops a few feet from him, his face in shadow. “Sam, there’s no use in running,” he says. “I’m always going to find you, even if I have to tear through every body on earth.”

“What do you want?” Sam says, and his voice is small and scared. “Just tell me what you want.”

“What I want doesn’t matter,” says the man. “It’s what you want. And you want to go back.”
Sam doesn’t argue. “I can’t,” he says, and suddenly he is crying for the first time since he was a little boy. “I can’t go back. I can never go back.”

The man comes up to him, bends down beside him, places a hand on his shoulder. “Sam,” he says.

“I can’t,” Sam cries. “I can’t.”

The man watches him in the darkness. “What do you want, Sam?”

“I want you to go away. I want you to leave me alone.”

“No, you don’t. What do you want, Sam?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do.”
“I- I want--” Sam says. “I don’t want to be here. I don’t want my mother to be dead. I don’t want to be alone.”

“What do you want, Sam?”

There is silence.

“I want to go back,” Sam says.

***

Then Sam feels weak and frail and small again-- he feels like he did years ago--he’s remembering everything--blood-- cold-- loneliness-- walking down empty streets-- running-- hiding-- killing-- the feeling of strangling a man-- quiet--

***

Quiet. A horrible quiet, that after-death sound, the echo of a gunshot ringing in his ears. Sam is twenty-four years old and he has just killed a man for the first time.

Sam lets the gun clatter to the asphalt, at first, lets himself sink onto his knees and grab the chest of the man in front of him, his hands scrabbling at the chest wound, as if he can go back, close the flesh, make the man all right again. He wipes the hair out of the man’s eyes with his blood-soaked fingers, strokes his cheek, sees, in his empty eyes, something small and sweet and innocent that has awoken in death. Then he pulls himself together, hears the sirens, grabs the gun and runs. 

To say he never meant to kill him wouldn’t be true. His fingers meant to knock the man’s own gun out of his hand, to fire the shot, meant to aim for the heart. But death should not be so silent.

A horrible thought is put into Sam’s mind, then, that the man he killed might have had a son, a little boy, only ten, and a daughter, hardly old enough to walk, and maybe there they are, right around the corner, watching their father bleed out in front of their eyes, hearing the quiet--

And then Sam lets the sound of the city fill his head and does not think of it any more.

***

A thin coat-- cups with quarters-- street corners-- back-alley fights--

***

Then a cold wind blows through, chilling the air, bringing snow. A winter of many years ago. Sam is nineteen, and this is his first winter on the street. He has nothing: no possessions, no money, no family. He is all alone.

He curls up on a park bench, looks at the dark snowy field in front of him, thinks that he wants to die, thinks of all the different ways he could kill himself. He thinks that tomorrow is going to be the day that he will finally gather up the courage, after years of putting it off. But, of course, he doesn’t. This is not the day Sam decides to kill himself. This is just another day.

***

Leaving everything behind--crying when people don’t see-- sleeping with one hand on his backpack-- thin mattresses-- cold sheets-- rejected job applications-- keeping his money in a hidden pocket-- long days of drinking -- a quarter in his pocket--

***

Then Sam is leaving the street, and he is suddenly smaller and healthier and a little bit more innocent. Sam is seventeen years old. Tomorrow is his birthday. He is looking into the eyes of a woman who has just told him what he has always known: that there is no place for him here.

“Where am I supposed to go?” Sam says, almost at a whisper. His voice cracks on supposed. 

The woman looks down, doesn’t meet his eyes. Her face is wrinkled and worn and tired. “There are several young men’s facilities scattered throughout the city that would be acceptable for a temporary home,” she says. She has the decency to sound apologetic.

“Shelters,” Sam says. “Homeless shelters. You want to send me to a homeless shelter.”

His social worker purses her lips. Her name is Marie. She has known Sam for eight years, now, known every detail about his life and family and home. Sam doesn’t even know her last name. “Yes,” she says, eventually. “But it’s only temporary. There will be people there to help you find a job. You’ll be able to get on your feet.”

This is not true and they both know it. But Sam lies to her as much as she does to him. He looks at her. She stares off into the window behind her. “Who the f*ck is going to hire a dropout foster kid with a DUI and assault charges?” he says, but he sounds more sad than angry. 

“I wish you luck, Samuel,” Marie says. 

“F*ck you,” says Sam.

***

Slaps across the face-- drunken foster parents-- working late hours-- getting high with strangers-- people screaming at him-- hidden money-- tired eyes--not wanting to go home-- moving from one place to another--not thinking of the future--

***

Sam is in another office. This one is brighter, more cheerful. There is a bowl of peppermints on the desk. Sam is sixteen and he is dropping out of high school.

“I’m very disappointed, Samuel,” says the principal. She is young, hopeful, optimistic. She has lipstick on her teeth. “You’re a very bright child. I must ask you to reconsider.”
That was a lie. So many lies. Sam was not a bright child. That’s just what principals have to say.

“I understand your situation has set you back,” she says. “I’m willing to offer extra help. All your teachers are perfectly understanding. You don’t have to be embarrassed to ask for help. A diploma would be invaluable in your future.”

“No thanks,” Sam says.

She raises her eyebrows. “This is a big decision,” she says.

“I know.”

“Please don’t think you’re any less smart than the other students.”

“I don’t.”

“And I don’t judge you any differently based on your history with the law. I value you as much as any other student.”

“I know.”

“Well, then, would you mind telling me why you’ve decided to leave school?”

Sam considers this. “I f*cking hate it,” he says.

This is true. But it is not the reason he’s dropping out. The truth is, his foster family makes him pay rent and the money he makes working weekends isn’t enough, but he’s not about to tell that to an uptight thirty-year-old six months out of grad school. 

“Samuel,” the principal says, gently chiding. “Have you read the sign?”

The sign on the door reads, no foul language please! It makes Sam want to punch her. “See,” he says, “I don’t go here anymore. So you can’t f*cking tell me what to do.”

Sam stands up and walks out. He feels faintly dizzy. He realizes, halfway down the hallway, that he’s ruining his life. 

***

Parties— long hours of detention-- failing tests-- skipping class-- scars across his back-- jumping from one home to another-- trying not to remember-- trying not to remember-- trying not to remember-- trying not to remember--

***

Sam is smoking a cigarette out the dorm room of the boys’ home. He is twelve years old. He hates smoking. The other boys, older ones, fourteen and fifteen, cold and mean and tall, watch him, willing him to cough. He doesn’t; forces himself to breathe, chokes down the smoke in his lungs, pretends he doesn’t care if someone comes in and sees them. The boys like him for now, because he’s strong, and curses like a sailor, and can take a punch, but they watch him like a hawk. They don’t trust him yet. 

He has been in a boys’ home for one year and three months now. He has not seen his sister in one year and three months. He has not seen his parents in one year and three months. He has not seen his home in one year and three months.

There’s a knock on the door. Two adults’ voices behind him. Sam extinguishes the cigarette on the windowsill and flicks it out the window as the door opens.

“Sam?” says a tall, thin man, Mr. Harrington, the headmaster. He blinks at him through thick-rimmed glasses. “There’s someone here to see you.”
Sam’s heart jumps as he stands. The other boys watch him and, for once, are silent. “Who?”

Mr. Harrington gestures and Sam follows, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet-- because of course it has to be his father, out of jail, because it was all a mistake, anyway, carrying his little sister, coming to take him back home; because of course this is all going to be over, they’ve figured everything out, he’s going to be okay-- but it’s only Marie. She smiles thinly at him.

“We’ve found a temporary home for you,” she says, all-business. “It’s in Queens. Now, it’s not going to be for more than a few months, but your foster parents seem like lovely people. I’ll give you a few moments to pack and say your goodbyes.”

Sam blinks. “What?” he says.

“What I just said,” she says impatiently. “We’ve found you a foster home.”

“Oh,” Sam says. “With Carrie?”

“With who?”

“My sister. With my sister?”

Marie stares at him. “No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean your sister’s been adopted,” Marie says. “You should have been told.” There’s a wrinkle in her brow, a hint of worry, and then it smooths. “There must have been an error.”

Sam’s mouth is dry. “Adopted?”

“Yes,” Marie says. “She’s in Connecticut. There was a couple looking for a young child to adopt, and when they heard of your sister…” she stops, then, realizing she’s not making things better. “She was adopted six months ago,” she says.

Sam feels sick. “No she wasn’t,” he insists, even though he knows he’s wrong. “You said you would try to keep us together. You said you’d find a place-- You said that us living apart was only temporary-- You said--”

He stops, then, looks at their worried faces, realizes, with a horrible nausea, that none of it mattered, what they’d said, that it was all lies; that his father wasn’t going to get out of jail, that he wasn’t going to be able to live with his sister, that he was going to be alright. “You have to get her back,” he says. “There must have been a mistake. I’m her brother. I can take care of her. I’m old enough now.” 

Marie purses her lips. “I’m sorry,” she says, and almost sounds like she means it. “But she has to stay with her adoptive family. If it helps, her adoptive parents are very kind.  I’m sure she’ll have a very good life.”

It doesn’t help. Sam feels everything falling away from him. Selfishly--horribly-- he asks, in a voice that’s small and broken, “what about me?”

“They simply weren’t willing to adopt an older child,” Marie says, like that isn’t the one sentence that will ruin his entire life, and clears her throat. “I’m afraid we’re on a tight schedule. I’m sure you’ll want to say goodbye to your friends.”

Sam gives a kind of strangled cough, a half-nod, and backs into the bedroom. He closes the door behind him. The boys watch him.

“Well?” one of them says.  “Who was it?”

“Social worker,” Sam says. “They found me a foster family.”

“With your sister?” one of the boys asks, and Sam feels a rush of gratitude to them for remembering. He shakes his head.

“Sh*t,” someone says. “Tough luck, man.”

“Yeah.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”

Sam pulls half a shelf of clothing into a bag. 

“You know, if I saw my social worker again, I’d kick his f*cking ass,” one boy says. “I’d take a gun and f*ckin’ shoot him right in the face. Wouldn’t hesitate for a minute.”

“First foster house they put me in, didn’t last for a week,” someone else says. “The asshole dad tried to hit me and I knocked him right out. Out cold. Thought he was f*ckin dead. Went straight back here.”

Sam lifts his bag onto his back. “Bye,” he says, but his voice is lost among the others.

*** 

Trying not to cry-- sleeping in a room with twenty other boys-- fistfights-- getting drunk for the first time-- running away-- coming back again-- social workers-- nightmares-- sitting in court in an itchy suit— missing mom-- missing Carrie-- missing dad-- trying not to remember-- trying not to remember-- trying not to remember-- trying not to remember-- trying not to remember--

*** 

San’s heart sinks when he feels himself being pulled back, feels the hot summer air filtering in through the window, hears the muted blare of the television from the other room. He doesn’t want to go back any further. He doesn’t want to remember this.

Sam is ten years old. His life is about to be torn away from him. 

The door slams shut.

“Dad?” Sam says. His voice is hopeful. If his father comes home early, it means he’s had a good day at work, and he has gifts. Sometimes it’s a new game for Sam, or a toy for little Carrie, or a new necklace for their mother, the kind that she’ll wear every day until a few weeks later, when it’s gone without a word.

Sam hears a set of light footsteps running through the house, into Carrie’s room and then into Sam’s, throwing open the door and running to him. She pushes Carrie into his arms. She looks, for a moment, like she’s going to hug him. She doesn’t. His mother doesn’t hug him very often. 

“I thought you had work,” Sam says.

“Go into the closet,” his mother says. “Be quiet. Don’t leave the closet until you’re sure everyone’s gone. Don’t ask questions. Don’t tell anyone anything.”

“Okay,” Sam says. He is used to things like this. He is used to not knowing what’s going on. He opens his closet door, sits down. Carrie, two years old, blinks sleepily, having just woken up from a nap.

His mother stands in the doorway. She takes a moment to take a breath, rub her forehead. That’s when Sam notices how tired she looks. Her hair is frizzy, her mascara tracked onto her cheeks, her breath heavy.  “Mom,” Sam says. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” his mother snaps. “I said don’t ask questions.”  Then she softens, bends down. Kisses him on the forehead, hard, leaving a lipstick mark. Kisses Carrie.  “Your daddy gets into some crazy sh*t sometimes, but he’s a good man,” she tells him.  “None of this is his fault. Don’t you ever think that. Don’t you ever-- they’re wrong about him. He did all this for us, okay? Remember that.”

She closes the door. There’s silence. Carrie’s already fallen asleep again.

And then he waits, the darkness constricting his chest. It’s only been a couple minutes when the door opens again, slams. There’s a distant yell. Sam recognizes his father’s voice. Then another man. Then a third man. His mother’s voice, low, steady. Someone saying something that sounds like, “well, what the f*ck am I supposed to do then?” His father  saying, “I just need--” then his mother, saying something quiet, the first voice saying, “that doesn’t matter.” Footsteps. The voices carry down the hallway, go quiet, go loud as they turn the corner. They’re nearing the living room. “Where are they?” someone is saying. His mother answering. The voices get louder, he can hear his father going, “listen, man, we’ve been friends for how f*ckin’ long now?” 

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Come on. I’m always good on my promises.”

“Sh*t, you know what I said, man. I know you have it.”

“Swear to God I don’t. Swear to God.” The door to the living room opens. Through the crack in the closet door, Sam can see a tiny slice of the beige carpet. Three sets of footsteps. The heel of his mother’s shoe. “I told you, man. One more month.”

“I can’t f*ckin’ do one more month!”

Then something happens, a commotion, his mother’s saying, “Hey, hey, there’s no need, look how long we’ve known you.”

“You know I don’t wanna do this, Jules. You know I don’t.”

Then his father’s saying, “I want you to get out of this f*cking house. Get the f*ck out.”

Then everything happens so quickly--

A shout- someone saying, “wait, wait,” someone saying, “I said get out!” the noise of something falling over, a crash-- someone saying, “don’t you touch her--” a scream--

A gunshot.

And then there’s a thump, like a body hitting the floor, and Sam is watching blood pooling on the carpet, soaking it dark red. The edge of a hand is just in his view. It’s thin, long-fingered, a diamond wedding ring on the fourth finger.  There’s silence.

Then everything goes all fuzzy and Sam doesn’t remember any more.

***

The memories come faster, then. Sam is nine. He is in his bed at night, listening to his father come home, the door shutting behind him, hears him sitting down. His mother coming out from the other room, them talking quietly, then someone says something and suddenly they’re screaming at each other, yelling things about money and moving and doing what’s best for the children, and Sam is squeezing his eyes shut and trying not to hear. He is eight. He was in the hospital for hours, fell asleep in the chair in the waiting room, but when his dad wakes him up, it’s all worth it to see the tiny pink baby in the little incubator, to get to hold her, to hear his mother snap at him not to drop her, even though she’s the happiest he’s ever seen. Sam is seven. He’s running through the backyard, summer sun hot on his back, and one of his father’s friends picks him up, ruffles his hair, tells him he’s getting so big. His mother, barely pregnant, is holding his father’s hand. He is six. His mother is screaming at him: she caught him in his father’s office, trying to open the drawers. His father is telling her to relax, calm down, he’s just a kid, he was just playing, but his mother tells him no, her child won’t be a part of this, she won’t let him. He is five. They’re moving, from Westchester to the Bronx, and Sam is crying-- he doesn’t want to leave his friends-- but his father is telling him that it’s okay, the new apartment is bigger. This is going to be a new beginning for them, he tells Sam’s mother, and squeezes her hand. She pulls it away. Sam doesn’t understand why she’s angry. He is four. His mother is yelling at him to stay in the car, don’t move, don’t you dare say anything, stay low, and his father is talking to a police officer, laughing in that easy way he does, and when he comes back into the car his mother bursts into tears, the only time Sam has seen her cry. He is three. His hand is in the fur of a black dog, lying by the heat of the radiator. It is midwinter, and he watches the snow. 

He is two. He is falling asleep in his mother’s arms, too old for this, she tells him, even as his eyes are closing. She is stroking his hair. “You have a second chance, Sammy,” she tells him. “You can make everything better. You can start over.” 

 “How will I remember?” Sam asks, and looks up at her. Just for a moment, he is aware of his body in the dark alley, the man crouching over him. But then he lets himself sink back into the warm arms of his mother. In the darkness of his bedroom, he can just make out her smile.

“You know more than you think,” his mother says. Kisses him on the forehead. “Goodnight, baby.” 

“Night-night, mommy,” Sam says, and he yawns. He lets his eyes slide shut, lets his mother put him in his crib, lets her brush back his hair. There’s the click of the door shutting behind her, and Sam falls asleep under the light of the moon.