“He’s fine,” Haley wrote.

“He wears those big noise-canceling headphones you got him for his birthday.

He falls asleep listening to his sports podcasts.”

I stared at the glowing words on the little screen.

I’d ordered those headphones online and shipped them to Texas two months earlier.

I thought I was buying my son a birthday present to help him concentrate on his homework.

Instead, I’d accidentally handed him something that shut out the sound of our family coming apart.