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“Thanks, Teal.”

The look of relief on his face made me sadder still. I was hoping to see that look grow stronger

and brighter as we drove farther and farther away from here, not as we drove back here. Was I being too selfish? Was it true that I’ve always been?

As it turned out, neither Del nor I had much time to ponder these questions. We drove up to his home and got the children out first, but before we reached the front door, car doors slammed around us and we turned to see four men in suits marching toward us, followed by a woman Del recognized.

He groaned.

“Child welfare department,” he muttered. “They must have been staked out and waiting for us.”

“Just hold it right there, son,” one of the men ordered.

Del put up his hand.

“Wait,” he said. They all paused, the woman stepping a little farther forward. Del looked at Shawn and Patty Girl, who were now terrified and holding on to him. “They don’t know anything yet, Mrs. Fromm,” he told the woman.

“Something has to be done for them now,” she insisted.

Del nodded.

“Okay. Just give me a few minutes, please.”

She firmed up her mouth, glanced at me, and then said, “We’ve been here quite a while. Where did you take them? I know you weren’t at the hospital.”

Patty Girl, thinking she had something important to offer, piped up with, “We had pancakes.”

None of them smiled.

“Ten minutes,” Mrs. Fromm told Del, and he turned and took the kids into the house. I started after them.

“Are you Teal Sommers?” I heard, and looked at the man closest to me.

“Yes.”

“Do you know that there is an all points bulletin out on you?”

“There always has been,” I replied, and walked into the house.

I’m not very old, of course, and I have been well protected all my life, but just when I thought I had seen the saddest things I could see, there’s always something sadder, something that wrings your heart more and tears at your very being. The sight of Del sitting Shawn and Patty Girl quietly on the sofa and then kneeling down before them to tell them their mother was dead and gone was something I will never forget.

I suppose when we’re young, as young as the two of them were, we have built-in walls of skepticism to keep us from believing in such a thing as death. The finality of it is not easily understood and accepted when you’re still young enough to believe in fairy tales and magic. Sick people always get better; they always come home out of the hospital.

“Mommy’s not coming home anymore,” Del began. “She was too sick to get better.”

“Why?” Shawn asked quickly.

“Her body became too weak,” he said. “The people out there, Mrs. Fromm, who you know, are worried you and Patty Girl won’t be safe here anymore. I can’t be with you all the time and work. They want to be sure you’re all right, so you will have to go with them to live where people can take care of you for a while. Someday,” he said, “I’ll come for you and we’ll be back together.”

I suppose it did Del no good that I was standing there in the doorway with tears streaming down my face. Oh, why did he get cold feet? I cried. Why didn’t we just go on and on? We would have made it. Anything would have been better than this, wouldn’t it?

Del shook his head as if he could hear my thoughts.

“I don’t want you two to cry about it,” Del told them. “It will just make it harder for everyone, including yourselves. Be a big boy and a big girl. I’ll see you soon. I promise,” he said.

“Will we go to a restaurant again?” Patty Girl asked.

“Absolutely, yes,” he told her.