“You didn’t care enough to check.

You put a child out in a storm and then you went back inside and you didn’t care enough to look.”

There was a silence on the line.

“I was disciplining him,” Arthur said, but the word had no strength left in it.

“No,” Julian said softly, and there was a depth of disgust in his voice I had never heard from my gentle husband before.

“You weren’t disciplining anyone.