“I thought you’d take her away forever.”

“I’m trying to give her a family that respects her,” I said.

“That includes respecting me.”

Lucas spoke then.

“Mom, I should have said this years ago.

You don’t get to decide how Corinne is treated in our home.”

He said it without shouting, and Agnes listened.

I left the meeting with no sudden certainty about our future, only a sense that boundaries could be spoken aloud and survive the discomfort that followed.