MY SEVEN-YEAR-OLD GRANDDAUGHTER CLUTCHED MY HAND AND WHISPERED, “GRANDPA… MOM PUTS SOMETHING IN MY JUICE.” I THOUGHT IT WAS JUST A CHILD’S FEAR—UNTIL A MEMPHIS DOCTOR READ HER TESTS, FROZE, AND WENT SILENT FOR FOUR LONG SECONDS.

“Sir,” Dr. Allen said, “I need you to think carefully before you answer. Has anyone been giving her medication regularly? Sleep aids, allergy medicine, cold medicine, anything at all?”

I swallowed. My mouth felt full of iron.

“No,” I said. “Not that I know of.”

He let that sit between us a moment.

“Then someone has been giving it to her without your knowledge.”

Without your knowledge.

Not just my knowledge.

Her father’s.

The school’s.

Anybody decent.

I looked again at Ruby’s sleeping face, and all at once I heard her voice from earlier that afternoon, whisper-soft, close enough for only me to hear.

Grandpa, can you ask Mommy to stop putting things in my juice? It makes me feel sleepy and I don’t like it.

My throat closed.

Outside, somebody laughed at the nurses’ desk.

Inside, something in me turned to stone.

Two hours earlier, I had still believed the worst thing I had done that week was miss my granddaughter’s birthday.