“TELL YOUR BROTHER I want him down here in ten seconds or less,” Claire said to Toby.

It was eight o’clock on a damp Carolina morning, the day after Hank’s dinnertime visit. Claire, Toby, and Gabrielle were packing the truck for the long drive to Massachusetts. Claire would be at the wheel, Gus would be riding shotgun, and the twins would be stuck in the jump seats.

“Tell your brother we’re ready to leave,” Claire repeated.

Toby screamed at the top of his lungs: “Gussssss! Mom said get down here! We’re ready to go!”

“I meant go upstairs and tell him to come down,” Claire said. “Go on, now. Scoot. I’m waiting on you both.”

Then she did what any mother would do—she took out her cell phone and telephoned Gus.

“Gus, I told you that I want to make central Jersey before it gets dark, and we’re not going to do it unless we leave right now.”

There was a pause. She clicked the phone shut, mumbled the phrase “Son of a bitch,” and ran inside, passing Toby along the way.

“We’re leaving,” she shouted outside Gus’s room. “Right now, young man. Toby—get in the truck!”

“Go ahead without me,” she heard Gus say.

“Get out here now.”

“I’m not going,” he shouted back. “I’ll go stay with Dad.”

“I swear…I’ll break this door down.”

“Go ahead.”

Claire took a deep breath, rubbed her face, and went downstairs and outside. Toby and Gabrielle, rapt, watched her unhook the side compartment of the truck where the spare tire was kept. The twins were wide-eyed as she walked back inside the house.

She was carrying a tire iron.

At Gus’s bedroom door, she said, “Last warning.”

Gus replied, “Get the fuck away.”

And that did it. She held the tire iron high and smashed it against the door.

The wood began to splinter. Claire landed blow after blow after blow with the tire iron. There was now a hole in the door that was larger than her head. Through that hole she saw a very frightened-looking Gus.

“Are you ready now?” she said.

“Yes,” he said softly.

“We’ll be in the truck.”

She walked down the stairs. By the time she reached the kitchen she realized that her hands were shaking and that her eyes were tearing up. I’m a mess, she thought. I’m an absolute mess. But I do have guts.

“What’s up with Gus?” Gabrielle asked as Claire climbed into the driver’s seat.

“He’ll be down in a minute. I finally talked some sense into your brother.”