After that Christmas, things eased into a routine and before long, we were doing things like a family of four instead of a family of five with a hole in it. As time went on, I stopped looking across the field at the Russian House. Even when I caught an accidental glimpse, it wasn’t as painful, or as frightening. It was just a farmhouse where something bad happened.
The dreams stopped as well and as school went on and hormones raged, I focused on things like football, music, cars, junk food and the new world of home video games…all the things boys tended to do.