the yard and letting in only thin, dull lines of light.

Daniel had insisted on the shutters after a summer storm knocked a branch through the neighbor’s sunroom.

Mara had hated them because they made the cheerful house look armored.

Now they made it look like a box.

Theo dragged his stuffed fox behind him.

“Are we playing fort?”

Mara forced her fingers to unclench.

“Something like that.

I’m just going to call Daddy.”

Her phone showed three bars of signal.

Daniel’s number was gone from her favorites.

She searched his name manually and found nothing.

She typed the number from memory.

The call failed before the first ring.

She called her sister, Nora.

Failed.

She called emergency services.

The screen flashed: calling unavailable.

Cold moved through her slowly, beginning in her stomach and spreading until even her fingertips felt hollow.

She opened the family account app.

Her profile picture was still there, a photo Daniel had taken of her holding Theo at the lake.

But under permissions, her role had changed.

Restricted user.

Outgoing calls disabled.

Messaging disabled.

Location sharing disabled.

Mara stood in the kitchen while Theo climbed into a chair and swung his bare feet.

“Can we have pancakes?” he asked.

“Yes,” Mara said automatically.

Then she opened the refrigerator.

One bruised apple sat in the produce drawer.

A carton of orange juice held barely two inches.

There was one slice of cheese in foil, half a lemon, and a jar of mustard.

No eggs.

No milk.

No yogurt cups Theo loved.

No leftovers from the soup she had made two nights earlier.

She opened the freezer.

Empty except for a tray of ice cubes.

The pantry shelves were bare.

Not nearly bare.

Not low.

Bare.

The cereal boxes were gone.

The rice jar was empty and wiped clean.

The pasta bin had been washed.

Even the little basket of granola bars she kept for playground afternoons had vanished.

Mara touched the shelf with two fingers.

It smelled faintly of cleaner.

Daniel had not forgotten groceries.

He had removed them.

Theo looked at her from the chair.

“Pancakes?”

She turned with the apple hidden behind her back, buying one more second to become the mother he needed.

“We’re having picnic breakfast today,” she said.

“Apple moons and cheese squares.”

He smiled because she made the words sound fun.

Mara cut the apple into the thinnest pieces she could manage.

She sliced the cheese into four tiny squares and put two on Theo’s plate.

He ate happily at first, naming the pieces after planets.

She poured half the remaining juice into his dinosaur cup and told him it was special camping juice, which meant little sips.

He believed her.

That nearly broke her.

For six years, their life had looked safe from the sidewalk.

A white house with black shutters.

Trim lawn.

Weekend pancakes.

A little boy who believed his father could fix every broken toy and open every stuck jar.

People saw Daniel mow on Saturdays.

They saw him carry groceries from the car.

They saw him put a hand at Mara’s back when they crossed a street.

They did not see how tightly that hand pressed when she said something he disliked.

They did not hear him sigh when she asked about a late meeting.

They