My son drained every last dollar from our life savings accounts and disappeared with the woman who helped him do it. I was heartbroken beyond words — until my 13-year-old grandson smiled and said, “Grandma, don’t worry. I’ve handled it.” A few days later, my son called back in a panic…

But he was already climbing the stairs to his room, leaving me alone in a house that suddenly felt enormous and empty, filled with questions I could not answer and a future I could not see.

That first night without Craig, I could not sleep. I lay in bed beneath the quilt my mother had made me when I got married, listening to the house settle around me. Every creak and groan seemed magnified in the dark.

Outside, the maple tree scraped one bare branch against the siding. A dog barked three blocks away. A car passed, slowed, then kept going.

Around midnight, I heard the soft clicking of computer keys coming from Mason’s room. I got up, tied my bathrobe, and padded down the hallway in my slippers. Light seeped from beneath his door.

The typing continued in a steady, purposeful rhythm far too focused for a boy who should have been asleep before school. I knocked gently. “Mason?

It’s past midnight, sweetheart.”