“No,” Harrison replied. “But she is. And for the first time in years, she’s not alone.”
I saw Wyatt swallow. A small detail. Almost nothing. But I saw it.
I also saw his hand grip the back of a chair. His knuckle turned white.
He had always been big. Tall. Strong. As a child, when he ran toward me, it felt like the whole world was coming to embrace me. As an adult, that same strength began to enter a room like a threat.
And yet, he was still my son. That was the cruelest part.
I wasn’t fighting a stranger. I was throwing out the child I had carried while he was feverish, the teenager I had defended at school meetings, the man I still called “my boy” even when he treated me like garbage.
Perhaps that’s why it hurt so much to see that there was no shame in her face.
Just anger at losing ground.
“And where am I supposed to go?” he asked.
The question would have sounded different coming from someone else. Coming from him, it sounded like an accusation.
Harrison didn’t blink.
“You should have thought about that before hitting your mother.”
Wyatt pointed at me with a trembling finger.
“You do this and don’t ever ask me to talk to you again.”
I nodded.
“If the only way to keep you around was to accept threats, shouting, and beatings, then I had already lost you before today.”
Finally, he looked away.
There, for the first time, I saw the boy beneath the furious man. Not for long. Just a glimpse. Confusion. Humiliation. Something broken that had been rotting for years without anyone wanting to name it.
