When Zach comes home to find his wife gone and their six-year-old twins waiting with a cryptic message, he’s forced to confront the one person he’s always trusted — his mother. What unravels next threatens everything he thought he understood about love, loyalty, and the silence between them.I was 15 minutes late getting home that evening.That might not sound like much, but in our house, 15 minutes mattered. It was long enough for the girls to be hungry, long enough for Jyll to text me, “Where are you?” and long enough for bedtime to start slipping.That was the first thing I noticed — how still everything was.The driveway was too neat: no backpacks dumped on the steps, no chalk scribbles, no jump rope tangled on the grass. And the porch light wasn’t on, even though Jyll always flipped it at six.

I checked my phone. No missed calls. No angry texts. Nothing.I paused with my hand on the doorknob, the weight of the day sitting somewhere behind my eyes.My shirt collar was still damp from the rain, and the only sound I heard was the soft hum of a neighbor’s lawnmower three doors down.When I stepped inside, it wasn’t “quiet.” It was wrong.The TV was off. The kitchen lights were off. And dinner — mac and cheese, still in the pot — was sitting on the stove like someone had walked away mid-step.I kicked off my shoes and rounded the corner into the living room, already halfway toward calling Jyll’s cell.But someone was there, in the living room already — it was Mikayla, the babysitter. She stood awkwardly by the armchair, phone in hand, her expression somewhere between concerned and apologetic.