The cord corkscrewed from the kitchen outlet, down the hall, and crimped under the crack of his door, which was always closed.

She’d asked him repeatedly to secure the cord against the wall, and he’d just as repeatedly failed to do it. He’d installed a padlock on his door after he’d returned home from school one day to find Michelle squirreling through his desk drawers. The lock installation, too, was presented as a done-deal: A hammer, some banging, and there it suddenly was. His own boy-nest, secured.