Not just my safety.

My peace, the ordinary background quiet that people who have never been broken down do not even know they have.

Getting it back was slower than packing boxes.

But I got it back.

In that bright apartment near the park, one un-criticized morning at a time, I got myself back.

Brian and I separated.

I did not do it in anger; by then the anger had mostly burned down into something clearer.

He was allowed supervised visits with Rosie, on the condition that he enrolled in individual therapy and a parenting course, and to his credit he did both, and never once, across a single visit, brought up his mother’s name or asked me to soften anything.