It claimed I had abruptly removed the children from the family home after a perfectly normal marital discussion, and it asked the court to return Lucas and Amelia while custody was evaluated, and to loosen the financial restrictions so that his business could operate.

Victoria read it through with me in her office.

“This,” she said, tapping the page, “is the document he brought Cynthia to dinner to create.

Every word of it needed you to explode in front of witnesses, so that when he wrote ‘extreme overreactions,’ there would be an overreaction on the record to point to.

He needed his mother and his brother to have seen you come apart.”

“Instead,” I said, “he has a filing full of adjectives, and I have a recording of him threatening to cut off my car, my cards, my insurance, and my phone.”