George Sr. laughed—a deep, genuine belly laugh that shook the table. "She's got a point, Mary. The trolley problem isn't about math. It's about who you'd take a bullet for."

"The trolley," Missy said. "You're asking who you save. You should be asking who you like ."

Meanwhile, across town, a different kind of crisis was unfolding. The Cooper garage, converted into a makeshift television repair shop, smelled of ozone and old solder. George Cooper Sr. held a pair of needle-nose pliers and stared at the back of a 1989 Zenith console. A faint wisp of smoke rose from a capacitor.

"It's a thought experiment, Meemaw. It doesn't have tires."