your eyes on me.”

Then Noah said something that made my vision blur.

“Uncle Derek… I can’t move my arm.”

By the time I turned onto my street, I was already half out of my seat.

Derek’s truck was crooked in front of the house.

The front door was wide open.

One of Noah’s little sneakers was lying in the yard like it had been kicked there.

I didn’t even remember putting my car in park.

I just ran.

Inside, the TV was screaming from the living room.

A lamp was on its side.

A beer bottle had rolled under the coffee table and was leaking onto the rug.

Derek was in the middle of the hallway, one knee planted hard on Travis’s shoulder blades, holding both of the man’s wrists pinned behind his back.

Travis was still mouthing off.

“It was an accident,” he shouted when he saw me.

“The kid ran into it.

Get this psycho off me.”

I stepped right over him.

Noah was pressed into the corner between the couch and the wall, shaking so badly his whole body looked tiny and loose, like he might fall apart if I touched him too fast.

He had tears all over his face.

His left arm was tucked against his chest at a wrong, careful angle.

When I knelt down, he flinched first.

That nearly broke me more than anything else.

“Hey, hey,” I said, forcing my voice to stay steady.

“It’s me.

Dad’s here.”

He looked up at me and his lip started trembling again.

“I’m sorry.”

I can’t fully explain what those two words did to me.

A four-year-old had been hurt, threatened, left terrified, and the first thing he needed to know was whether I was angry with him.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I said.

“Nothing.

Do you hear me?”

He nodded once and leaned into me with the kind of desperate trust that should never have been tested in the first place.

Behind us, Travis kept shouting versions of the same lie.

Accident.

Overreaction.

Didn’t mean it.

Derek didn’t say much.

He just kept him on the floor, breathing hard but controlled, waiting for the police.

“What happened?” I asked Noah quietly.

Noah glanced toward Travis and immediately shrank closer to me.

Derek answered without looking up.

“I walked in.

Your boy was behind the couch.

Travis had the bat in his hand.

He tried to block Noah from getting to me and then locked the deadbolt.

He made one bad choice after another.”

Sirens cut through the street outside a few seconds later.

Two officers came through the front door fast, followed by paramedics.

Derek only let go when they had Travis handcuffed.

Even then, Travis twisted around and jabbed his chin toward me like I was the one who had ruined his day.

“You people are insane,” he snapped.

“He knocked over my stuff.

I swung the bat away.

That’s all.”

One of the officers looked at Noah’s arm and then at Travis.

His expression changed in a way I will never forget.

Not shocked.

Not confused.

Just done.

The paramedics wrapped Noah in a blanket and started checking his arm.

When they touched it, he clenched his teeth and tried not to cry.

That’s another thing that sits