I took my keys from my purse and placed them on the table.
The metal made a small, clean sound.
“I gave thirty-five thousand dollars toward Lucas’s wedding and apartment deposit.”
Brandon blinked.
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“I took three unpaid weeks off when your mother had knee surgery. I covered Liam’s rent for two months when he lost his job. I paid for Tyler’s transmission. I emptied almost twelve thousand dollars from my savings when you wanted that first truck.”
“Hannah—”
“I never kept score.”
I looked at him.
“Because I thought family meant you didn’t.”
Mom whispered my name.
I turned to her.
“Get your coat.”
Brandon stepped forward.
“If you walk out now, don’t ever come back.”
I helped my mother into her coat.
She was shaking so hard she couldn’t get her left arm through the sleeve.
I did it for her.
Then I picked up my purse.
Behind us, Brandon said, “You’re going to regret this.”
I opened the door.
Maybe I should have said something clever.
Maybe I should have screamed.
Instead I looked at the man I had loved for seven years and felt the terrible absence of grief.
“I think I already regret enough.”
Then I left.
I did not go back.
That night, Mom and I stayed at a modest hotel near downtown.
The room smelled like industrial carpet cleaner and coffee from the lobby downstairs. Our window faced a parking garage. The heater rattled every twenty minutes.
Mom sat on the edge of one bed with an ice pack pressed against her cheek.
I sat on the other and called Claire Donnelly.
Claire had been my friend since college.
She was the kind of person who could listen to your entire disaster without interrupting and then ask the one question you hadn’t considered.
She arrived forty minutes later carrying a legal pad and two coffees.
The moment she saw Mom’s face, her expression changed.
“Hospital first.”
“I’m fine,” Mom said.
“No.”
“Claire—”
“Margaret, he hit you twice. You’re getting examined.”
Mom looked at me.
I nodded.
At the urgent care clinic, a doctor documented the swelling and bruising.
Afterward we went to the police station.
Mom hated every second of it.
I could tell because she kept smoothing the same wrinkle in her coat while giving her statement.
“He was angry,” she said.
The officer looked up.
“Angry doesn’t make this legal.”
Mom’s eyes filled then.
Not when Brandon struck her.
Not when the vase broke.
Not when we left.
Only when someone officially named what had happened.
