He will take Lucas and Esther with him, in their pajamas. Very quietly he will lift them in his arms. Daddy! Daddy!—the children are smaller than he recalls, this is startling to him, disorienting. The children smell of their bodies, their pajamas are soiled. Halfway he wonders if their mother has drugged them too, to make them sleep.

Seeing it is Daddy, they are happy. He will take them to safety. Except they are hungry—whimpering with hunger. The woman has put them to bed without feeding them. Daddy! To Burger King in the pickup. He will take them, he is their daddy. The woman has been left behind, unknowing. The woman is unconscious in her bed, sprawled in nakedness and smelling of liquor.

It will be his error to think that the woman left behind will not exert her power over him.

Pressing down on the gas pedal. Highway a blur, for Daddy too is ravenous with hunger. And thirst. Stops for a six-pack at the 7-Eleven. Pops a can open inside the store, cold beer running down his fingers. This will be observed on the surveillance tape. That Daddy has not eaten, and Daddy has not slept in forty-eight hours. Love for the kids is all Daddy has to nourish him.

Driving through stunted pines. Icy road. Slick pavement, black ice it is called. Your mother is to blame. The lying whore has sabotaged our family.

Until now the woman has been pulling the strings. They have been her puppets—the father, the children.

But no longer.

At the crossing-over time. At home in the dark.

As a boy, he’d been taught. He had not wished to know, yet he had been made to know.

The stations of the cross are seven. Christ must bear his cross. Christ must stumble and stand upright again. Christ is bleeding from his wounds: chest, back, head. Soon, spikes will be driven through Christ’s hands and feet. It is supposed that Christ was made to lie down upon the rough-hewn cross upon which he was nailed. Christ will submit to his crucifixion, for it is written. Christ will die as a man and descend to Hell. And on the third day Christ will rise again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, where he will dwell with the Father for eternity.

He can think of little else. Useless to try to sleep, he must do penance in the darkest hours of the night. Kneels on the filthy floor of the cell. As he has been instructed.

Flagellant is a word no one speaks aloud. Yet many are the flagellants seeking penance.

The children’s faces! Lucas, Esther. You tend to forget, a child’s face is small.

The heads of children are small. As fragile as eggshells. Their arms, legs are thin. As if their bones are composed of a material lighter than adult bones, easily snapped.