The Power of the Dog (Power of the Dog, #1)

by Don Winslow

Art Keller parks three blocks away from the White House and walks the rest of the way. He’s lonely. He has his work and little else. Cassie is eighteen now, soon to graduate from Parkman; Michael is sixteen, a freshman at the Bishop’s School. Art goes to Cassie’s volleyball matches and Michael’s swim meets, and he takes the kids out afterward if they don’t already have plans with their friends. They have awkward once-a-month weekends at his downtown condo—he makes extravagant efforts to entertain them, but they mostly just hang around the complex pool with the other “visitation daddies” and their kids. And his own kids increasingly resent the mandated visits, which interfere with their own social lives. Art understands and usually lets them cancel with a fake-cheery “Next time.”