I was going to build the truth a body, and then let it walk into that courtroom on its own two feet, while I sat in a hospital chair holding my wife’s hand, exactly where I belonged.

My phone buzzed on the nightstand.

It was my attorney.

Two words on the screen. Warrants approved. I looked across the room at my sleeping son, warm now, safe now, and I understood something with total clarity.

My mother had spent her whole life certain of my weakness.

She had, in the end, targeted the one household in the world she should never have touched.