I have never in my life felt less calm.

But because my children needed me to win, not to vent, and winning required the one thing rage makes impossible: a steady hand, and a clear record, and a father who could not be waved off as merely angry, because he was, visibly, completely, terrifyingly in control.

And it was right then, as I sat on the kitchen floor holding both my children, that I heard a key slide into the front deadbolt, and the brass handle turn.

Chapter 10 — The Key in the Door