It is thundering and lightening at the group home. A thirteen year old comes up, out of his bedroom, into the office.
"You know what's weird?" he says to me. "I wasn't scared when M. was running around here with a knife, trying to kill us, but I'm scared of the thunder."
"I know," I say. "It scares me too, sometimes."
"I'm afraid that I'll be left without any lights." He says this to me in the matter- of- fact staccato voice that he states everything in.
"I promise you, that if the lights go out, I will come to your room and bring you one."

He gives me a little smile and a nod, and goes back downstairs to sleep.

I'll do what I can, kiddo.
Whatever I can.