The siren’s wail sliced through the house before the blue lights painted the walls, turning our framed vacations into crime scene backdrops. In the kitchen, three faces pivoted toward the window: my son, his father‑in‑law, his sister‑in‑law. Their plates were still full, wine glasses sweating beside the casserole Sarah had made as a peace offering. “We’re just talking options,” David said, but the county recorder forms on the table said otherwise, each line already filled in with my wife’s name as the thing to be moved, not the person to be asked. Michael’s handprint glowed faintly on the back of her chair where he’d leaned in, where his voice had turned low and reasonable and cornered. Olivia’s signature waited, ghostlike, on the witness line of the draft. When the first officer stepped through the door and asked who was hurt, Sarah opened her mouth—and for the first time that night, every oth… Continues…