My husband was convicted of child neglect and failure to protect his own son; he was granted no custody of either child, served an eighteen-month sentence, and was placed on the state’s child abuse registry, where his name will sit for a very long time.

I filed for divorce and was granted full legal and physical custody of both Poppy and Toby, along with a permanent protective order that keeps my husband and his mother from ever coming near us again.

I did not celebrate any of it.

I felt no thrill when the sentences came down.

What I felt was the particular quiet of a door that has finally, permanently, been closed — and locked — between my children and the people who had harmed them.

People expected more from me, I think — more fire, more satisfaction, some visible reckoning to match the size of what had been done.