I Left My House Empty Three Days Before Christmas

I’d ever said anything to my daughter in that tone. Maybe not in my life.

Scott made a scoffing sound. “You’d call the police on your own family?”

“I’d call them on any adults who abandoned eight children because they wanted a beach trip.”

Another silence.

Then Gary, softly, “There it is.”

Diane started crying, but the kind that comes mixed with fury. “I continue reading …