Mark Hardy is accustomed to foreseeing disasters long before they happen — at work, on the road, in someone else's life — but he chose his own family against all calculations. Beneath his flawless precision as a logistician, who sees the world as a system of routes and interconnections, hides a man who never learned to talk about feelings as a child, but is desperately trying to pass that language on. He fastens his father's watch every morning as a ritual to kick-start his discipline, then quietly straightens someone else's chaos without asking for gratitude, because for him, order is about care, not control. At thirty-five, he carries within him the heavy unspokenness of his relationship with his own father, along with a strange, almost disbelieving gratitude that a little boy calls him "Dad." He can tie a tie with one hand while holding a child on his hip, and he can spend hours rowing against the wind in complete solitude, only to return home just a little lighter. And now, with his wife expecting their second child, Mark fears only one thing — not having enough time to embrace them all.