I’d smoothed my skirt in silent panic and swallowed my own feelings just to dodge another storm in Patricia Whitmore’s house.

That old habit of going along was gone now, left behind in courtroom 3B when the truth was finally said out loud.

Vanessa was bound by the court’s strict five-year protective order, finishing her required anger management classes and her probation under county supervision.

My mother stayed in her big suburban house, shut away behind closed doors while the neighbors whispered about the court records.

My father, Harold, had quietly sent the eight thousand four hundred dollars back into my account, with a short handwritten apology that I tucked away in my study drawer.