Garnet in the doorway, guarding her.

The room made a sound like a held breath being let go all at once.

Garnet lunged toward the screen.

“Turn it off.” I did not.

A second clip replaced the first: my son, alone, working my locked filing cabinet open.

And then, while the images still hung there on the wall above them, I set three documents down on the corner of their wedding cake table, one beside the other.

“The Ridgemont house,” I said, “remains mine.