“Mom?” Tyson appears beside my chair. “Are you okay? You look sad.”
“Just thinking about grown-up stuff.”
“Is it about Dad?”
I hesitate, then decide on honesty. “Yeah. It’s about Dad.”
“Are you going to tell other people about what he did?”
Smart kid. Too smart.
“I might. Would that be okay with you?”
He considers this with the same seriousness he brings to hockey strategy. “If it helps other kids, then yes. But what if it makes him mad?”
“He can’t hurt us anymore,” Dex says from across the table. “There are rules now that keep him away from you and your mom and Blythe.”
Tyson looks between us, processing. “Okay. Then yes. You should tell them.”
Out of the mouths of babes.
I pick up Detective Gonzalez’s card. “I guess I’m making a phone call.”
By the timeElliot arrives with promised wine and Chinese food, I’ve given my formal statement to Internal Affairs, scheduled testimony for next week, and somehow convinced Blythe that putting soy sauce on fried rice does not constitute “cooking” and therefore doesn’t require her supervision.
“How are you holding up?” Elliot asks, unpacking what appears to be enough food for a small army.
“Better than expected. Worse than I’d like.”
She nods like this makes perfect sense. “That sounds about right for a day like today.”
Brody’s with her, carrying wine and looking uncomfortable in the way men do when they know someone’s been through something terrible but don’t know what to say about it.
“How are the kids handling everything?” he asks, settling at the table.
“Tyson’s processing. Blythe’s asking a lot of questions. Both of them seem... relieved, I think. Like they’re finally allowed to say that their dad scared them.”
“Kids are resilient,” Elliot says. “More than adults usually give them credit for.”
“Let’s hope so.”
Dinner is surprisingly normal. The kids tell Brody and Elliot about their Lego project—some kind of castle with very specific architectural requirements that Blythe explains at length. Dex teases Brody about something that happened at practice. I eat lo mein and drink wine and try to remember what normal family dinners used to feel like.
This is better.
After the kids go to bed the four of us clean up and settle in the living room.
“So what happens now?” Brody asks.
“Legal stuff moves forward. I testify next week. We see what happens.”
“And if he fights the custody decision?”
“Then we fight back,” Dex says, no hesitation in his voice.
Elliot raises her wine glass. “To fighting back.”
“To fighting back,” we echo, and I realize that for the first time in possibly ever, I actually believe we can win.
