Where were you?” Colby stood in the doorway spinning his car keys around one finger.

The weekend passed in a blur of sawdust, soldering iron smoke, and laughter with Ivy as we put the finishing touches on her robotics project. By Sunday evening, the house felt entirely cleansed of the toxic residue that had poisoned it for months.

On Monday morning, my cell phone rang while I was standing in the shop classroom prepping safety goggles for first-period woodshop.

The caller ID flashed a local cell number I didn’t recognize, but the area code was familiar. I swiped to answer, leaning against my drill press.

“Hollis,” a voice rasped. It wasn't Colby. It was Russ. He sounded defeated, his bravado entirely crushed beneath the weight of his own monumental failures.

“Russ,” I said, not bothering to hide the boredom in my voice. “If this is about legal representation, talk to Miller & Vance. I’m off the clock.”

“No lawyers, Wade. Just… just listen to me for thirty seconds,” Russ muttered, coughing into the phone. “I’m at the county intake center downtown.”

“Congratulations. Do you need directions to the unemployment office?”

“Wade, I’m serious,” Russ sighed, sounding smaller than ever before. “Colby and Paige… they packed their duffel bags an hour ago. They walked out of the apartment. They said they couldn’t take living with me anymore—that I’m a loser, that I lied to them about everything, and that… and that they wanted to go back to you.”

I stood completely still, the roar of the shop ventilation system fading into the background.

“And why are you telling me this?” I asked coldly.

“Because they’re sitting outside the county services building right now with their thumbs out, trying to hitch a ride back to your side of town,” Russ said, his voice cracking with bitterness. “They asked me to call you. They said… they said you were the only real father they ever had.”

I let out a slow, measured breath, closing my eyes for a brief moment as the past rushed back in full relief.

“Russ,” I said quietly. “Tell them something for me.”

“What?”

“Tell them that strangers don’t pick up hitchhikers. And tell them to ask their biological parents for a ride.”

I hung up the phone before he could reply, dropped the device onto my workbench, and picked up my safety glasses. The shop door chimed as my first-year students began streaming in, laughing and tossing their backpacks onto the bleachers.