“We are not going to fight anymore.”

Toby let out a long breath, and smiled — a smile of such total, uncomplicated relief that it settled, once and for all, any last question I might have carried about whether I was doing the right thing.

I have replayed that small exchange more times than any of the grand confrontations.

Not the courtroom, not the folder opening on the folding table — this.

A six-year-old, fresh from his bath, asking whether the nights were going to fill up with shouting again, and the way his whole body loosened when I told him no.