Wyatt let out an incredulous laugh.
“Don’t mess with me.”
Then Harrison took out the first document and turned it towards him.
It wasn’t an empty threat. It wasn’t theater. It was a formal notice to vacate the house.
The house was solely in my name. Harrison had helped me years ago to legally secure everything after the divorce, though I’d almost forgotten that detail. He hadn’t.
There was another document underneath.
A request already prepared for a temporary protection order if Wyatt refused to leave or raised his hand to me again.
I saw something change in his face. Not regret. Not yet.
More like surprise. The surprise of discovering that the wall he had banged against so many times wasn’t soft. It was firm.
“Did you call a lawyer?” he asked me.
“No,” Harrison answered before I did. “You called me. And this time I did what I should have done a long time ago.”
Wyatt finally stepped down the last step. He approached the table. He didn’t touch the chair.
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“Mom, are you really going to do this to me?”
There was contempt in his voice, but also something else. Fear. Small, dry, newborn.
I knew him too well. I knew when he was about to attack and when he was calculating.
“I’m not doing anything to you,” I told her. “I’m finishing something I should have finished months ago.”
He looked at me as if he wanted to send me back to our usual place. That corner where I hesitated and he was in charge.
“For a slap?”
Harrison placed both hands on the table.
“No. Because of everything that came before and because of what was going to come after.”
The silence fell suddenly.
I could hear the clock ticking. The refrigerator. My own breathing, strange and short.
Wyatt turned towards me, his jaw clenched.
