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.”

He looked again at Owen. Their eyes met. The child’s fingers dug into William’s collar. And for one suspended, terrible second, William almost did it. He almost said no. Almost carried Owen back to the car, drove away, and let the consequences come.

Then Sue said, “Are you taking him inside, or should I?”

And shamefully, disastrously, William handed over his son.

Owen made no sound at first. He simply clung harder. William had to peel his arms away one at a time while telling himself this would not be as bad as it felt, that children sometimes dreaded things they then managed fine, that he could not blow up his family because of fear and intuition and old ghosts from his own life. But as soon as Sue took Owen’s hand, the boy looked back at William with a silence so full of betrayal it nearly dropped him to his knees.

Then the front door closed.

William stood in the driveway long enough that Marsha finally said, “You can go.”