Beth and Eli live with me now — the spare room is Eli’s room, officially, repainted a green he calls “T-Rex green,” and his bike got fixed the first Saturday, by the two of us, in my garage, where his hooks are at his height. My daughter is in counseling and back at work, and some evenings I hear her laugh from the kitchen and have to go find something to do with my hands. And Eli — Eli is the reason I’m writing this. Six months in, at bedtime, he asked me, “Grandpa, do you ever sleep in corners?” and I said no, buddy, never did. He nodded, thinking his big thoughts, and then he said, “Me neither. I used to, when I was little.” When I was little. He’s six, and he’s already put it in the past, because that is the outrageous mercy of children: give them a bed and a quilt and a grandfather in the hallway, and they file the corner under “when I was little” and move on to dinosaurs. I’m the one who sits in the hallway some nights. That’s fine. That’s a grandfather’s corner, and I chose it. So here is what I want to say to every grandparent, every aunt, every neighbor of a quiet child: they will not tell you something is wrong. They will ask you a polite little question — which corner, why does she only eat half, can I keep this here so it doesn’t get regular-ed — and the whole truth will be standing in the doorway holding a plastic dinosaur, waiting to see what you do. Believe the question. Write it down with the date. Make the calls. In this house, kids sleep in beds. Even the extra ones. ESPECIALLY the extra ones.