Last night my son h.i.t me and I didn’t cry. This morning I got out the nice tablecloth, served breakfast like on special occasions, and when he came downstairs smiling he said, “So you finally learned your lesson”… until he saw who was waiting for him at my table.

I didn’t sleep at all that night, and at four in the morning, I started cooking a massive breakfast of biscuits, gravy, bacon, and strong coffee. I took out the good holiday dishes and spread the embroidered lace tablecloth over the table because I had made a final decision.

Shortly before six, Harrison arrived at the house looking older and wearing a dark coat with a brown leather folder tucked under his arm. He didn’t ask any silly questions, but instead looked at my face and my trembling hands and understood everything immediately.

“Is he still upstairs?” he asked quietly.

“He is asleep,” I replied while I looked at the table I had prepared.

“You always cooked like this when you were about to change something big in our lives,” Harrison noted as he took a seat.

“This ends today, Harrison,” I said, feeling for the first time in months that someone truly saw my pain.

“So tell me just one thing, Leona, are you really leaving this house today?” he asked as he stepped closer.

I thought of Wyatt as a little boy with scraped knees and then I thought of the man who hit me last night, and I knew what I had to do.