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UVALDE, Texas (AP) — Josie Albrecht drove frantically from house to house, retracing the school bus route she drives twice a day, delivering Uvalde’s children safely to and from school.

When she’d picked them up, hours earlier, they wore giddy grins, excited for summer break just days away: soccer, softball, freedom. She’d planned a pizza party to celebrate that afternoon. But before she could pick them up and drive them home, a gunman walked into their school and started shooting.

Now, days later, she was drawn to the town square and the 21 white crosses erected there, one for each of the 19 children and two teachers whose deaths left gaping holes in the marrow of a small town.

“It’s my job to take them home. I didn’t take my babies home,” Albrecht wailed, over and over.

In a town this small, 15,000 people, even those who didn’t lose their own child lost someone -- their best friend, the little boy down the road who dribbled his basketball in the driveway, the kid who stood on the curb, backpack in hand, waiting for the bus. They see the empty spaces they left behind everywhere. The bus seats they won’t sit in. A baseball glove they won’t wear. Front doors they won’t skip from to join the neighborhood game of tag. Rivers they won’t fish in.