~SCARLETT.

My son-the one I'd abandoned-has a knife at my throat. That single fact beat louder than my pulse, louder than the laughter drifting in from the backyard where everyone had been arguing minutes ago.

He and I stared each other down: me half‑kneeling, dress trapped beneath his knees; him standing far too still, far too fierce for a three‑year‑old. A box‑cutter blade hovered in the soft hollow where my heartbeat fluttered.

"Caleb," I whispered, palms up in surrender. "Please put that down, sweetheart."

He didn't so much as flinch. A gull screeched over the lake; floorboards creaked in the hall; Sylvia's gravel laugh carried faintly-proof people were near, clueless....