Kyle was escorted out in his own clothes. He didn’t even have time to pack his things. He looked back at me from the doorway, his face twisted in a sneer, but I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. I turned my back on him. I went to the bedrooms and started packing for the kids.

Brandon and Chloe came out of their rooms, wide-eyed and scared. I knelt down in front of them. “We’re going to stay at Grandma’s for a while,” I said. “It’s going to be okay.”

Teresa stood in the doorway, watching as I carried the last of their bags to the truck. She didn’t try to stop me again. She knew. She saw the folder on the table and she knew that the man who had been sending money home for fifteen months was gone. In his place was someone who had finally learned how to protect what was his.

I didn’t look back when I drove away. I didn’t look at the house, or the garden, or the life I had tried to build. I looked straight at the road. My kids were in the backseat, safe, and for the first time in over a year, I felt the weight of that pipeline mud finally falling off my boots. I had lost the house, or maybe I would keep it, I didn’t know yet. But I had my life back. And that was enough.