If you can just fix this car thing, he'll be so much safer.

Then you can deal with the rest of it.

You decide to stay and make your dad dinner.

Inside the fridge, you find weeks worth of vegetables that you were having delivered.

While you slice the ones that are salvageable, you think about what to do about the car.

You can't just steal his keys.

He'll notice.

And you can't take the car away either.

He'd be furious and it would only make things worse.

Then you have an idea.

By the time you've put the lasagna in the oven, your dad has fallen asleep on the couch.

You creep by and take his keys from him.

Then you go out into the garage and dig around until you find it.

A small metal file.

You spend the next half hour slowly shaving down the teeth on his keys.

Just enough so they won't work anymore.

You sneak the keys back next to him on the couch when you're done.

You don't like tricking him like this, it feels mean and kind of gross.

But the alternative feels worse.

At home, you call your sister to let her know what you did, in case he calls to complain

about how the car won't start.

That's kind of genius.

...