Chap­ter 1: In the ear­ly morn­ing hours, the pro­tag­o­nist is jolt­ed awake by the unset­tling sen­sa­tion of some­thing crawl­ing on his skin. His eyes snap open to reveal the pres­ence of mul­ti­ple spi­ders on his bed, a sight that sends a wave of dis­com­fort through him. Despite the ini­tial shock, he reluc­tant­ly switch­es on the bed­side lamp, hop­ing to iden­ti­fy the crea­tures. As he observes the spi­ders on his pil­low and bed­side table, he method­i­cal­ly squash­es them, yet the feel­ing of unease lingers. The sight of them, com­bined with his grow­ing sense of dread, only inten­si­fies the rest­less­ness he’s been expe­ri­enc­ing. He tries to brush off the dis­com­fort, but his mind refus­es to set­tle, filled with wor­ries that he can­not shake off. Among the myr­i­ad of con­cerns rac­ing through his head, he is most trou­bled by his daugh­ter Maggie’s recent behav­ior and the unset­tling devel­op­ments involv­ing her friend Dawn’s uncle. Addi­tion­al­ly, a trou­bling pho­to of Dawn has sur­faced, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the sit­u­a­tion. These haunt­ing thoughts plague him, cre­at­ing a whirl­wind of anx­i­ety that seems impos­si­ble to escape.

The pro­tag­o­nist’s mind drifts back­ward, revis­it­ing mem­o­ries of past moments that have shaped his rela­tion­ship with Mag­gie. He reflects on the times when he placed unnec­es­sary pres­sure on her, focus­ing on triv­ial mat­ters such as her table man­ners and aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess. Despite his best inten­tions, he now real­izes that these demands may have cre­at­ed more harm than good. One mem­o­ry that stands out is when Mag­gie, at sev­en­teen, asked him for help pur­chas­ing a veg­an suede jack­et she had set her sights on. The jack­et was an expen­sive item, priced at $350, and the pro­tag­o­nist ini­tial­ly resist­ed, believ­ing it to be a waste­ful pur­chase. How­ev­er, despite his doubts, he even­tu­al­ly relent­ed, swayed by his desire to make his daugh­ter hap­py and to show her that he cared. Using his cred­it card, he ordered the jack­et, but his skep­ti­cism about the pur­chase remained. He couldn’t shake the feel­ing that it was more of a gim­mick than a true neces­si­ty, yet he still want­ed to sup­port her deci­sion.

The jack­et was sup­posed to arrive by mail, but when it did, it had mys­te­ri­ous­ly dis­ap­peared from their porch. The pro­tag­o­nist sus­pects that it was stolen by a porch pirate, an issue he had heard about but nev­er expect­ed to expe­ri­ence him­self. He con­tact­ed the online retail­er imme­di­ate­ly, explain­ing what had hap­pened, and they agreed to send a replace­ment jack­et. When the replace­ment arrived, Mag­gie was thrilled. How­ev­er, weeks lat­er, the pro­tag­o­nist learned that Maggie’s friend Priya had bought the extra jack­et Mag­gie had received by mis­take. This rev­e­la­tion shocked him to his core, as he real­ized that Mag­gie had kept the jack­et despite the cir­cum­stances. When he con­front­ed her, her lack of remorse and her casu­al dis­missal of the seri­ous­ness of the sit­u­a­tion added to his dis­ap­point­ment. The con­ver­sa­tion quick­ly esca­lat­ed into an argu­ment, with Mag­gie offer­ing a series of excus­es to jus­ti­fy her actions. Frus­trat­ed, the pro­tag­o­nist threat­ened to report her to the police, a threat he knew he wouldn’t fol­low through on, but it left a deep emo­tion­al wound between them. Even­tu­al­ly, Mag­gie was made to donate the jack­et to Good­will, an act that left her fum­ing with resent­ment. This inci­dent marked a turn­ing point in their rela­tion­ship, and the pro­tag­o­nist began to see the cracks in the foun­da­tion of their bond.

Now, as he lies awake, the pro­tag­o­nist real­izes the full impact of his past choic­es. He under­stands that his actions, although well-mean­ing, may have con­tributed to the rift between him and his daugh­ter. He has spent years try­ing to con­trol her deci­sions and behav­ior, not real­iz­ing that his efforts were push­ing her fur­ther away. The com­plex­i­ties of their rela­tion­ship have become increas­ing­ly appar­ent, and the pro­tag­o­nist is left grap­pling with the con­se­quences of his past mis­takes. As he reflects on his par­ent­ing, he sees the need to approach the sit­u­a­tion with more under­stand­ing and less pres­sure. How­ev­er, the grow­ing ten­sion sur­round­ing Maggie’s inter­ac­tions with Gwen­dolyn and Brody Tag­gart com­pli­cates mat­ters fur­ther. The pro­tag­o­nist is unsure how to move for­ward but is deter­mined to fix the frac­tured rela­tion­ship with his daugh­ter, even though the path is unclear. His mind races, filled with the weight of the unre­solved issues, and he lies awake, won­der­ing how he can find a way to heal the grow­ing divide between them. The inter­nal strug­gle he faces speaks to the com­plex­i­ties of father­hood, love, and the real­iza­tion that mis­takes made in the past can have last­ing con­se­quences.