The number was unknown; the instinct wasn’t. “Captain David,” the caller said, formal. “This is Sergeant Randy Miller at West District. We have your son.” I looked at my couch—at Blake, blanket up to his chin, trying to pretend the TV held him—and felt the temperature in the room change. There’s a particular kind of quiet you learn in uniform: the kind before a storm. “Describe him,” I said. The sergeant did—height, hair, the bruise you can’t miss under station lights. Then the name of the man w

The first knock was polite—two quick taps and a pause—like whoever was out there still believed in manners. The second knock abandoned the pretense. It was the kind of pounding reserved for debt collectors in old movies. I set my coffee down, padded barefoot across the living room I had painted myself (two coats, soft sage), and checked the peephole. Dad. Same jaw set I’d grown up obeying. Behind him—Mom, already wringing her purse strap into rope, and Mallerie, pursing her glossed lips like the

On the Tuesday he delivered his verdict, Leila set the table with their wedding china and the crystal candlesticks that only came out for anniversaries and good news. The salmon was pan-seared the way his mother had once taught her, asparagus blistered just enough, a $40 Cabernet breathing on the sideboard like patience itself. She had dressed for the moment—teacher-of-the-year blue, a shade that photographed well under warm light—and stood there listening to the garage door that didn’t open. Si