And when he had seen enough, he took out his phone and called his son.

“Tomorrow morning,” George said, when Jason picked up. “Ten o’clock. You’re going to be sitting in this room.”

“Dad—” Even through the phone, Claire could hear Jason shift into the smooth, reasonable voice he used on everyone. “Dad, please, let me explain what actually—”

“Ten o’clock. Sharp.” And George hung up, and set the phone down flat on the wooden table, and looked at it for a moment as though it were something he was disappointed in.

Claire watched Ruth press her lips together and understood that, for the first time in eight months, Jason was going to have to stand in front of the only two people on earth he had never learned how to manage.

None of them slept much that night.