Inside were the drawings, the notebooks, and the faded blue shirt Nolan had worn the day he came back crying from his father’s house.

I drove downtown, parking two blocks away from the legal aid office.

The office was located in a cramped brick building with worn linoleum floors and the faint smell of old coffee.

My newly appointed pro-bono attorney, Sarah Jenkins, was waiting for me.

She was a sharp-eyed woman in her late thirties who wore her hair in a tight bun and had a stack of files on her desk that looked as tall as a building.

“You look like you haven’t slept, Claire,” Sarah said, ushering me into her small office.

“I haven’t,” I said, setting the box on her cluttered desk.

She looked at the box, then back at me. “What is this?”

“Everything,” I said. “Our entire case.”

I sat down in the vinyl chair and began pulling the items out one by one.

First, I handed her the school drawings Mrs. Latham had collected.

Sarah spread them out across her desk, adjusting her glasses.