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 tried to grade essays at the dining room table. The students’ writing—introductory reflections on attachment styles and early caregiving—swam before his eyes. He made coffee he didn’t drink. He opened the refrigerator and closed it again. He stood in Owen’s room and looked at the rumpled comforter, the stuffed fox propped against the pillow, the night-light shaped like a moon. He sat on the edge of the bed and remembered how, three weeks earlier, Owen had clung to his hand and whispered, “Can I sleep in your room tonight?” Marsha had rolled her eyes and said, “He’s playing you.”

Had he been?

At 5:11, William texted Marsha: How’s he doing?

No answer.

At 5:19: Please let me know.

At 5:34, she replied: Fine.

That single word made something inside him twist tighter, not looser. He stared at the screen, then typed: Did he calm down?

Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.

Eventually: Stop hovering.

William set the phone down and walked out to the backyard. Cicadas rasped in the trees. A sprinkler clicked somewhere two houses over. Normal life spread around him with unbearable indifference. He imagined Owen in Sue’s house eating at a rigidly set table, trying not to cry, trying to read adult faces for danger. He imagined Sue correcting the way he held a fork, Marsha watching with approval. He imagined nothing worse than that because his mind still resisted giving shape to the darkest possibilities, as though naming them might make him complicit in not having acted sooner.

At 6:47 p.m., Marsha texted: Staying for dinner. Mom wants to talk. I’ll Uber home.

He called immediately. It went to voicemail.

He didn’t leave a message. He just stood in the kitchen holding the phone, listening to the beep that opened empty space and then cut off.

At 7:15, he called Sue’s house. No answer.

At 7:23, he tried again. Still no answer.

By 8:00, his nerves had become a live electrical field under his skin. He paced from kitchen to hallway to living room to kitchen again. He opened his laptop and pulled up nothing. He checked the driveway as if Marsha might suddenly appear. He drafted a text that said I’m coming to get him and deleted it. Then another that said This was a mistake and deleted that too. He hated himself with a quiet, growing clarity that was almost serene in its precision. Every minute now felt like an indictment.

At 8:30, his phone rang from an unknown number.