I had been gone for five days, but nothing prepared me for what I saw when I opened the door: my wife juggling dinner and our sick toddler, while my mother and sister sat nearby on their phones.

“Get out.”

Noah started crying again, frightened by the tension filling the room.

Lauren bounced him gently against her shoulder, whispering shakily, “It’s okay, baby. It’s okay.”

Patricia snatched her purse off the chair.

“You’ll regret speaking to me this way.”

Ethan walked calmly to the front door and pulled it open.

“No,” he replied evenly. “I regret letting you treat Lauren like unpaid labor in her own home.”

Melissa shoved her phone into her pocket and stormed toward the door. Patricia followed behind her with fury burning across her face.

At the doorway she turned back one final time.

“When you calm down, you’ll apologize.”

Ethan held the door wide open.