PART 21

People occasionally asked whether I enjoyed seeing Mark struggle.

The honest answer was complicated.

Some days I remembered the smug smile at the hearing and felt a brief, shameful thrill that he had been forced to face the consequences of his decisions.

Then Tommy would ask whether his father was coming on Sunday, and the thrill would vanish.

The consequences were not confined to Mark.

Every missed visit, every anxious phone call, every argument about money had the potential to touch our child.