I had spent years learning to keep my hands steady and my notes accurate in circumstances a great deal more chaotic than a divorce.

Gavin thought he was up against a frightened old woman and a slight, quiet daughter.

He was actually up against a decade of institutional habits about evidence, and he never saw them coming, because they do not look like anything.

They just look like a woman who happens to have saved every message.

Chapter 14 — Getting Her Out

Before any of the papers were served, there was one thing that had to come first, and it was the part that frightened me most, because it was the part I could not fully control: we had to get my mother physically out of that house, safely, before Gavin knew anything was happening.

We waited for our window, and it came when Gavin left for a scheduled business trip to Duluth.