She was moving carefully, because she was still weak, still healing, still fifteen pounds too light.

But she was standing straighter than I had seen her stand in over a month, and she crossed the room and she looked my wife directly in the eye, without flinching, for the first time.

“He didn’t trap you,” my mother said, clearly, so that everyone could hear it.

“You trapped yourself.

He only came home early enough to find the door you’d already locked behind you.”

Wendy was escorted off the property that afternoon in handcuffs, charged with felony elder abuse, physical assault, grand larceny, and the financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult.