My son sobbed the entire drive to his grandmother’s house. “Daddy, please don’t leave me here.” My wife snapped, “You’re babying him.” I left him anyway. Three hours later, a neighbor called. “Your little boy ran to my house shaking. He’s hiding under my bed and won’t stop crying.”

It should have comforted him. William wanted desperately to see some relief in the boy’s face, some belief that his father’s word was enough to hold the world together. Instead, when Owen pulled back, William saw that same expression from the rearview mirror, only worse now: fear so absolute it had made room for despair. The kind of look children wore in photographs taken after disasters, staring straight through the lens because ordinary trust had already been stripped from them.

William’s skin went cold.

Sue came down the porch steps without hurrying. “That’s enough dramatics,” she said.

William rose slowly, still holding Owen. “He doesn’t want to stay.”

“No child wants discipline.”

“That’s not what this looks like.”

Sue stopped a few feet away. Up close, her face seemed even harder, sun-weathered skin pulled tight over stern bones, thin lips set in a permanent line of disapproval. “You always were soft.”

William ignored her. He looked at Marsha instead. “I don’t like this.”

Marsha folded her arms. “You never like anything that might actually do him some good.”

“What exactly is supposed to happen here this weekend?”