Instead he took out his phone, set it on the table, and looked at me.

“Julia, pack a bag for you and Ruby.”

Travis laughed uneasily. “She’s not going anywhere.”

Dad ignored him. He called his attorney — a woman named Denise Harper — and put her on speaker.

“Denise,” he said, “I need an emergency financial separation plan for my daughter. Her husband has taken her earnings, left their child without food, and cut off her access to the family accounts.”

Travis’s smile disappeared.