My 6-year-old granddaughter phoned me in panic just after midnight. “Mommy says the baby is coming! Help!” I asked, “Where’s daddy?” She answered, “He k!cked mommy’s tummy and left.”…..

Her voice broke. Mommy. Lydia climbed onto the chair to get closer to the bed. Don’t cry. Papa says you’re going to be okay. Cassidy reached out with shaking fingers to touch her daughter’s face. I am, baby. Mommy’s going to be just fine. They sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to the steady beep of the monitors.

Finally, Cassidy looked at Harry with eyes that had aged a decade overnight. I want him gone, she said quietly. Not scared, not sorry. Gone. Harry studied his daughter’s face. The young woman who’d married Trent three years ago had believed in second chances and the power of love to change people. That woman was gone, replaced by someone harder, someone who understood that some lines couldn’t be uncrossed.

“You won’t have to ask me twice,” Harry said. Something passed between them in that moment, an understanding that went beyond words. Harry had spent his adult life in places where problems got solved with direct action rather than paperwork and committees. He’d pulled men out of collapse mine shafts, fought fires on oil rigs, and once talked a suicidal rough neck down from a Derek platform.

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