For Nine Years He Mistook My Silence for Surrender; What He Never Understood Was That Every Dinner I Didn’t Fight About Was a Day I Stayed Close Enough to Gather What I Needed to End Him

I could prove all of it now.

And that was the end of his power, in a single sentence, spoken quietly, at my own table.

Chapter 10 — One Suitcase

Two officers had been waiting outside — Lorna had arranged that too — and when Roman came around the table toward me, they came through the door.

They were professional about it.

They did not lay hands on him unless they had to.

They walked him upstairs and stood in the doorway of what had been our bedroom while he packed a single suitcase, and then they walked him back down and out of my grandmother’s house, and Sabrina gathered up the overnight bag she would not be unpacking and followed him into the night.