My six-year-old son burst into the supermarket where I worked, three miles from home, in tears, and gasping he shouted, “Mom, we have to go home right now… Dad…”

The ambulance drove away with its siren on, and only then did the officer add quietly:
— Your husband repeated the same thing several times. That you must not go inside under any circumstances before it was time.

I looked at my son and suddenly understood: he knew more than he had been able to say.
And that thought was the most terrifying of all.