I was tucking my five-year-old son into bed after his weekend at his dad’s house. He yawned and asked if we could play the ‘closet game’ again. I paused and asked him to explain. My blood TURNED TO ICE at his answer. He said he has to hide when the ‘loud lady’ visits. The signal to come out was when the techno music started playing.

My stomach dropped so hard I thought I might throw up right there on his dinosaur rug. I forced a smile, the kind that hurts your cheeks because it’s completely fake. I smoothed the hair back from his forehead. His skin felt warm and clammy, like he’d been running, but he was just lying there in his pajamas.

— Did you play this game a lot, buddy?

— Only on Saturday. When the lady comes. She yells really loud.

He rolled over and hugged his stuffed bear, closing his eyes like it was the most normal thing in the world. I sat there in the dark for an hour. I listened to his breathing, the soft huff-puff that usually calmed me down, but tonight it sounded fragile. Every time a car drove past outside, sweeping headlights across the wall, I flinched.

I grabbed my phone and stared at James’s contact info. I wanted to call him and scream. I wanted to drive over there and kick his door down. But I knew James. If I came at him with accusations, he’d shut down. He’d lie. He would tell me I was crazy and that I was trying to ruin his time with his son. I needed to know what was actually happening before I pulled the trigger.

The next morning at the shop was a blur of gray fog and autopilot. We had a wedding order for sixty centerpieces, and the delivery truck had just dropped off crates of wholesale roses.

I stood at the stainless steel work table. My hands moved in a rhythm I had memorized ten years ago. I grabbed a long-stemmed red rose with my left hand, right near the base. The stem was thick and wet, coated in that slick, green slime that comes from sitting in buckets of preservative water. It smelled like a mix of expensive perfume and stagnant pond water.

With my right hand, I took the stripping tool—a jagged metal clamp—and raked it down the length of the stem. Zip. Snap. Crunch. The thorns and leaves tore away in a violent spray of green confetti, landing in the trash bin below. The sound was satisfying, a sharp, tearing noise that felt like it was scratching an itch inside my brain.

I did it again. And again. The friction warmed the leather of my gloves. Sometimes a particularly thick thorn would catch, jerking my arm, resisting the pull before snapping off with a dull thud. I focused entirely on that resistance. I needed the physical sensation of breaking things to keep from driving my van off the road on the way to James’s apartment.

You know that specific type of panic? The one that isn’t sharp and screaming, but heavy? It feels like you’re wearing a lead vest, the kind they put on you at the dentist for X-rays, but you’re wearing it all day. You drink coffee, but it doesn’t wake you up; it just makes your hands shake while your brain stays in the mud. You look at other people laughing at their phones or ordering sandwiches, and you want to shake them and ask how they can function when the world is clearly ending.

I told my manager I had a migraine. It wasn’t a lie. The pressure behind my eyes was building like a thunderhead.

I got in my van and drove to the complex where James lived. It was one of those “luxury” garden-style apartments that was really just plywood and beige siding with a nice pool. He had moved there six months ago to “start fresh” after he lost his job at the logistics company. He told me he was consulting now.

I parked three buildings away. I didn’t want him to see the van. The engine ticked as it cooled down in the humid afternoon air. I walked toward building C, keeping my sunglasses on.

I reached his landing on the second floor. The hallway smelled like carpet cleaner and old cooking oil. I stood outside door 204.

Silence.

Then, a voice.

— NO! NO! YOU HAVE TO PUSH!

It was a woman. Her voice was raspy, deep, and incredibly loud. It cut through the wood of the door like a serrated knife.

— DO IT AGAIN! LOUDER! I WANT TO HEAR YOU BEG!

I froze. My hand hovered over the doorbell. My brain short-circuited. Beg?

— I can’t!

That was James. He sounded exhausted. He sounded like he was in pain.

— I DON’T CARE! GET ON YOUR KNEES AND GIVE ME EVERYTHING!

My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. The blood rushed in my ears, a whooshing sound that drowned out the hum of the hallway AC unit. I felt the sweat prickling under my arms, cold and sudden.

I thought about the last five years. I thought about the custody mediation, the lawyers, the way James had wept in the kitchen when we sold the house. I thought about how he always said he just wanted to be a “good dad.” Was this what he meant? bringing our son into a house of violence? Into some twisted dynamic where he was being humiliated while our child huddled in a closet waiting for techno music?

I thought about the police. If I called them, they would take my son away for questioning. They would put him in a system. I saw the flash of sirens in my mind, the trauma on his face. I couldn’t let strangers handle this. I had to end it.

I pulled out the emergency key I wasn’t supposed to have anymore. I jammed it into the lock. My hands were shaking so bad I scratched a long gouge into the brass plate.

I turned it. Click.

I threw the door open and stepped inside, ready to swing my heavy purse at whoever was hurting him.

— GET AWAY FROM HIM!

I screamed it. I didn’t mean to, it just ripped out of my throat.

The scene in front of me was not a dungeon. It wasn’t a drug den.

The living room was blindingly bright. Two massive ring lights were set up on tripods, flanking a desk. The windows were covered with thick black soundproofing blankets.

James was standing in the middle of the room. He was wearing a tight black t-shirt that was soaked in sweat. He wasn’t bleeding. He was holding a microphone.

Sitting on the couch was a woman. She was small, maybe fifty years old, with bright purple glasses and a messy bun. She had a tablet in her lap and a half-eaten bagel on the coffee table. She jumped about a foot in the air when I yelled.

— Jennifer?

James lowered the microphone. He looked terrified, but not because he was being tortured. He looked like a kid who got caught smoking.

— What the hell are you doing? Where is he?

I marched past them, heading straight for the hallway closet. The “Loud Lady”—the woman on the couch—stood up.

— Excuse me? Who are you?

— Shut up.

I reached the closet door. It was a utility closet, meant for coats and maybe a vacuum cleaner. I ripped it open.

My son was sitting on the floor. He had his iPad on his lap and his noise-canceling headphones on—the big ones James had bought him for “sensory issues.” He was surrounded by acoustic foam tiles that were stacked against the walls. A small battery-operated lantern was glowing next to him.

He pulled the headphones off and looked up at me, blinking.

— Mommy? Is the music playing?

I scooped him up. I pulled him out of that dark, stuffy box and held him so tight he squirmed. He smelled like cedar and dust. I turned around to face James.

— Explain. Now. Or I call the police and tell them you’re locking a child in a closet.

James ran a hand through his hair. He looked at the woman with the purple glasses, then back at me.

— Jen, chill out. This is Melissa. She’s my… she’s my voice coach.

— Your voice coach?

— I’m doing audiobooks. And character work. We’re recording a demo reel for a fantasy series. It’s a really big deal.

I looked at Melissa. She adjusted her glasses, looking annoyed.

— He has potential, but he lacks diaphragm control. We have to scream to open the airways.

I stared at them. The ring lights were buzzing. The air in the room was stale and hot.

— You lock him in a closet?

— I don’t lock him!

— You put him in a closet so you can scream at each other?

— It’s not a closet, Jen, it’s a… sound-dampened waiting area. The mic is sensitive! If he makes a noise, it ruins the take. And Melissa gets really into it. She’s intense. We play the game so he knows to stay quiet until we take a break. The techno music is the alarm for the break.

I looked at the “sound-dampened waiting area.” It was a closet. It was three feet by three feet. My son had spent his Saturday afternoons sitting in the dark, listening to a stranger scream at his father to “get on his knees and beg,” waiting for a techno beat to set him free.

— You realize how psycho this is, right?

— I’m working! I’m trying to build a career here! Do you want child support or not? Because this is how I get it!

He threw his hands up, playing the victim. He always played the victim. He truly believed that locking a five-year-old in the dark was a noble sacrifice for his potential career as a fantasy goblin voice actor.

I looked at Melissa.

— Get out.

— We have twenty minutes left in the session—

— GET. OUT.

I didn’t scream it like she did. I said it with the quiet, flat voice of a woman who knows exactly where the bodies are buried.

Melissa grabbed her tablet and hustled out the door.

James stood there, deflated.

— You ruined the session.

— You ruined the weekend.

I walked to the kitchen and grabbed my son’s backpack. I packed his things. I didn’t yell. I didn’t throw things. I felt a cold, hard clarity settling in my chest.

— We’re leaving.

— Jen, come on. It’s my time. You can’t just take him.

— Watch me.

I knelt down and put my son’s shoes on. He looked confused.

— Is the loud lady gone?

— Yeah, baby. She’s gone. We’re going to go get ice cream.

— But the music didn’t play.

— We don’t need the music anymore.

I stood up and took his hand. We walked to the door. James was standing by his expensive microphone, looking at his reflection in the dark window.

— I’m doing this for him, you know.

I stopped. I looked at the closet. I looked at the blackout curtains. I looked at the man who thought “hiding” his son was better than parenting him.

— No, James. You’re doing this for you. You’re just using him as a prop that you can put away when you’re done with the scene.

I slammed the door. The sound echoed in the hallway, loud and final.

We got in the van. My hands were still shaking, but the lead vest was gone. I looked in the rearview mirror. My son was buckling his seatbelt.

— Mom?

— Yeah?

— The closet wasn’t that bad. I had my iPad.

— I know, honey. But you shouldn’t have to hide. Ever.

He nodded and looked out the window.

— Okay. Can we listen to the radio? But not techno.

I laughed. It was a wet, jagged sound, but it was real.

— No techno. I promise.

We drove away from the complex. I didn’t know what the lawyers would say. I didn’t know how I was going to explain to a judge that my ex-husband was an aspiring orc who kept our child in a coat closet. But I knew one thing for sure.

The next time James wanted to play a game, he was going to be the one hiding.

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