The sound of the front door opening interrupted Charles’s and Martin’s idle conversation. As they sat listening to the visitor cross the outer office, Charles glanced at Martin. On days when they were feeling lighthearted they would try to predict whether the caller was a client of Charles’s, or Martin’s wife come from across the street to tell him a patient had turned up. But Martin didn’t notice Charles’s glance, he just gazed peacefully at the far wall, fingering the cup of apple cider he held balanced on one thigh. Charles thought the footsteps didn’t sound like Betty’s, so the visitor must be looking for him—in need of a lawyer, not a doctor.

He was only half right—the visitor was looking for him but not because he was a lawyer. The figure who stepped into the doorway of his private office was his sixteen-year-old son, Joshua. READ MORE