My son brought his boyfriend home for Sunday dinner, and the second I saw that young man’s face I went cold with a serving spoon still in my hand. Twenty minutes later I had locked him in my own basement and was calling the police — and I was wrong to do it, and I would do it again, and both of those are true.

Suzanne Rakes came to the county building on the Thursday.

I was not there and I want to be clear that I had no part in it and asked for none. Everything I know about that afternoon I know from Detective Rincon, who told me one sentence about it, which is all I asked for.

She told me that when Emmett came into the room he said, “I’m sorry, I don’t—” and did not finish it, and that his mother said, “That’s all right. I know.”
PART 5 — THE THIRD STEP

That was nineteen months ago.

Emmett is twenty-one. He kept Kai, as a name. Kai Rakes. He has said, to Elliot, that Emmett is a seven-year-old and Kai is the one who did the twelve years and he is not throwing either of them out.

He and his mother see each other. It is not a film. It is two people who have a great deal to learn about each other and eleven years of separate habits, and by his own account the first six months were much harder than anybody expected and they nearly stopped twice.