“What timeline?” Chloe asked, looking between our parents.

“Mom? What is he talking about?”

Mother didn’t answer her.

She looked at Father, her eyes filled with a desperate, silent plea.

“We need to go inside,” Mother whispered, her voice cracking.

“Richard, please, we have to go inside.”

Father did not move.

He stood rigid, his eyes locked on the detective.

“We have nothing to say to you without our attorney present,” Father said.

“That is your right,” Detective Miller said.

“But I am required to deliver this summons.”

He pulled a folded white paper from his folder.

I looked down at the wooden box in my hands.

The burnt paper inside seemed to glow in the bright afternoon sun.

I knew what my parents had told me.

But looking at Mother’s terrified face, I realized the lie went much deeper than my long sleeves.

“You told me you were in the next room when the fire started,” I said, looking at Mother.

Mother did not look at me.

She kept her eyes on the detective’s folder.

“You told me you ran in and pulled us out,” I said.