18-hour traffic jam, a $1.50 skewer, $150 tolls tear open family cracks. Natalie cries on the stairs. Aunt Emily learns greed for 24 years, takes one year to turn back. Tomato seedlings regrow. A message arrives: "More next year." Some roads take 18 hours home; some take half a lifetime to turn back. No one is purely bad—just people struggling forward in the mud.