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.”

“And that’s exactly why he needs discipline before he turns into one of those impossible children who cry over every little thing.” She turned then, not to comfort Owen, not even to look at him with irritation softened by maternal instinct, but with open annoyance. “Enough. You’re going for the weekend, not to prison.”

Owen made a small choking sound and pressed himself harder into the corner of the back seat, as if he could disappear into the upholstery. “I don’t want Grandma’s house.”

“You don’t get to want,” Marsha snapped. “You get to obey.”