My husband, Carter, and I have been married for nine years, and from the day we first met, he made his ultimate life goal clear: he wanted a massive family. He constantly talked about having at least six kids, painting a picture of a bustling, joyful home. We actually hit that number recently, and today, we are the parents of six children, all under the age of ten.

Carter arrived home at 3:15 PM in high spirits.

He had played one of his best rounds of the season at the country club, shooting an eighty-two, sinking a clutch twenty-foot putt on the seventeenth hole, and taking fifty dollars off Henderson. The afternoon beers on the clubhouse patio had been ice-cold, the banter had been effortless, and the sun had given his forearms a healthy, athletic glow.

As he pulled his BMW into the concrete driveway of 1442 Elmwood Lane, he felt a momentary pang of magnanimity toward his wife. *Poor Elena,* he thought, adjusting his rearview mirror to check his hair. *She really does work herself into a lather over nothing. Maybe I’ll take her out to that Italian place next weekend. Get her out of those hideous gray sweatpants.*

He grabbed his golf bag, slung it over his shoulder, and unlocked the front door.

"Hey! The conquering hero returns!" he called out cheerfully, kicking his golf shoes off onto the welcome mat.

He was met not by a welcoming greeting, but by a wall of sound that hit him with the physical force of a blast furnace.

The noise was deafening, primal, and chaotic.

From the second floor came the rhythmic, thumping vibrations of what sounded like an indoor demolition derby. In the living room, the television was blasting an obnoxious YouTube gamer at maximum volume, the screen flashing strobing neon lights. Sam was sitting in the middle of the hallway rug, his face completely painted in purple diaper-rash cream, shrieking at a pitch that rattled the light fixtures. Beside him, Leo was methodically taking books off the built-in shelves and hurling them like frisbees across the room.

"What in the world...?" Carter muttered, dropping his golf bag. The bag hit the hardwood floor with a heavy clatter, immediately attracting the attention of Chloe, who was crawling toward it at breakneck speed, leaving a trail of crushed Goldfish crackers in her wake.

"Elena?" Carter called out, his voice sharp with rising annoyance. "Elena! Where are you? The baby has diaper cream all over the Persian rug!"

Silence from the kitchen.

Carter stormed down the hall, his loafers crunching over a carpet of dry cereal and cracker crumbs. "Elena, I’m home! What is going on with this house? Why are the kids unsupervised?"

He rounded the corner into the kitchen and froze.

The room was immaculate—save for the island. The sink was empty. The stove was turned off. But right in the center of the quartz countertop, illuminated by the afternoon sunbeam pouring through the window, sat a pair of garish, neon-pink, heart-shaped plastic sunglasses.

Resting beneath them was a sheet of white paper.

Carter frowned, a cold, unfamiliar prickle of unease creeping up the back of his neck. He walked slowly to the counter, picked up the paper, and began to read.

His eyes darted across the sharp black ink. With every sentence, the color drained from his face.

*Spa downtown...*

*Entire weekend...*

*Vibrant noise without me...*

*See you late Sunday night!*

"No," Carter whispered aloud to the empty room. "No, no, no. This is a joke. She wouldn't."

His phone buzzed in his pocket.

He snatched it out with frantic haste, expecting an apology, expecting her to say she was at Target and would be home in twenty minutes.

Instead, the screen illuminated with the photograph.

There she was. Elena. His wife, who five hours ago had looked like a hollowed-out shell in stained rags, was sitting by a shimmering luxury pool in an expensive black swimsuit, her skin radiant, her smile devastatingly gorgeous, holding up a frosted margarita as if toasting his impending doom.

Carter’s thumb flew across the screen, stabbing the call button.

*Ring.*

*"You have reached the voicemail of Elena Vance. Please leave a message."*

"Elena!" Carter roared into the phone, his voice cracking with a bizarre mixture of fury and disbelief. "Pick up the damn phone! This isn't funny! You cannot just leave six children alone in a house! It is three-thirty in the afternoon! Noah had soccer at two! Leo is throwing books! Call me right now!"

He hung up and dialed again.

Straight to voicemail.

He dialed a third time.

Straight to voicemail. *Do Not Disturb.*

A blood-curdling shriek from the living room shattered his technological trance. Carter dropped the phone onto the island, spun around, and sprinted into the hallway.

Noah and Liam had spilled down the stairs, locked in mortal combat over an iPad. Noah had his brother in a clumsy headlock, while Liam was savagely biting Noah’s forearm. Meanwhile, Leo had managed to find a container of glitter glue from Maya’s craft bin and was currently painting the baseboards in electric turquoise. Chloe was sitting on Carter’s leather golf bag, happily gnawing on the rubber grip of his five-iron, while Sam, still coated in white zinc oxide, was sobbing uncontrollably, his diaper sagging so heavily between his knees that it looked ready to burst.

"Stop!" Carter bellowed, raising both hands to his head. "Everybody STOP!"

The room fell quiet for precisely two seconds. Six pairs of eyes turned to look at the man in the pristine white polo shirt.

Liam let go of Noah’s arm, wiping sweat from his forehead. "Dad? Where’s Mom?"

"Your mother is... she’s taking a short break," Carter stammered, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. "I’m in charge."

Liam looked at his father. Then he looked at the purple cream on Sam’s face, the glitter on the baseboards, and the sheer, unadulterated panic radiating from Carter’s eyes.

Liam was nine years old, but in that moment, he possessed the chilling wisdom of a battlefield veteran sizing up an incompetent general.