I’ve already cleaned out the closet and bought Austin some new bedding.

I grabbed the phone before Peter could snatch it away and read the cruel proof of their finished betrayal with my own eyes.

“Saturday at ten in the morning?” I asked, holding the bright screen up to my husband’s guilty face.

“You already told your aunt to drive four hours down here to take my son?”

Peter opened his mouth to offer another pitiful excuse, but nothing at all came out of his throat as he stared at the screen in my hand.

They had already set the final pickup for my little boy in under ninety-six hours, and if I hadn’t walked into the kitchen this morning, his bedroom would have been stolen right out from under me.