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.”

“Daddy,” Owen whispered again, and this time his voice had gone thin and hoarse with exhaustion. “Please.”

William looked into the rearview mirror. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Owen’s face was blotchy and wet, his blond hair plastered to his forehead, and there in his expression was something William could not unsee: not ordinary reluctance, not the manipulative crying of a spoiled child testing boundaries, but terror. Real terror. The kind that widened pupils and hollowed the face. The kind that made the body go rigid, then collapse.

“Maybe,” William began carefully, “maybe we should talk about this again.”

Marsha turned toward him so fast the movement felt like a slap. “Excuse me?”

“I’m saying he’s clearly not okay.”

“He’s fine.”

“He doesn’t look fine.”

“He looks like a child who has learned that if he cries enough, his father will rescue him from every situation that makes him uncomfortable.” Her mouth tightened. “This is why your parenting doesn’t work.”