Chapter 10
The first month after the hearing was the hardest.
Ryan appealed the ruling, of course.
He lost.
He tried to get the supervised visitation lifted.
He lost again.
He called Noah every night at first.
Then every other night.
Then once a week.
By the third month, he was calling once a month.
Ashley Bennett left him when the money ran out.
I heard through the grapevine that he’d moved to Florida alone.
Good riddance.
Noah started seeing a therapist.
He was angry at first.
Angry at his dad.
Angry at me for not protecting him sooner.
But slowly, he started to heal.
He went back to school.
He made the soccer team.
He stopped waking up screaming in the middle of the night.
I went back to work.
I sold the big house— too many bad memories— and bought a smaller one in a nice neighborhood with a big backyard for Noah and his new dog, a golden retriever puppy he named Rex.
Sarah lived five minutes away.
Linda called once a month to talk to Noah.
She’d moved to Atlanta to be closer to him.
She and Ryan didn’t speak.
Six months after the hearing, Maria closed the case.
We had a celebration dinner at Sarah’s house.
Noah ate three slices of pizza and fell asleep on the couch halfway through the movie.
I sat on the porch with Sarah, drinking iced tea.
“Can you believe it’s over?” she said.
“Not really. Some nights I still wake up expecting him to be in the next room.”
“You did good, Em. You fought for him. A lot of women would’ve given up.”
“I didn’t have a choice. He’s my son.”
We sat in silence for a while.
Then Sarah said, “You know, you’re allowed to be happy now. You’re allowed to start over. Meet someone new. Not all men are like Ryan.”
I thought about it.
Maybe someday.
But not yet.
Right now, it was just me and Noah.
And that was enough.
A year to the day after that terrible night I’d come home drunk and found Ryan yelling at Noah, I was tucking him into bed.
He was ten now.
Older.
Braver.
He held his dinosaur— the one he’d forgotten that night— under his arm.
“Mom?”
“Yeah, baby?”
“Do you ever miss Dad?”
I sat down beside him.
“Sometimes I miss the man I thought he was. The one I married. But that man never really existed. The real Dad… he made his choices. And he has to live with them.”
Noah was quiet for a moment.
“Did I do anything wrong? Did I make him leave?”
I pulled him into my arms.
“Never. You hear me? Never. None of this was your fault. Your dad had problems that had nothing to do with you. You are the best thing that ever happened to me. And you are the best thing that ever happened to him. He just didn’t know how to appreciate it.”
Noah snuggled against me.
“I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, baby. More than anything.”
I kissed his forehead and turned off the light.
I walked downstairs and poured myself a glass of wine.
Just one.
I sat on the back porch and watched the stars.
A year ago, I’d been a wife who was slowly checking out of her marriage.
I’d made mistakes.
Big ones.
But those mistakes had woken me up.
They’d forced me to fight.
To become the mother Noah deserved.
I took a sip of wine.
Somewhere out there, Ryan was living with the consequences of what he’d done.
But here?
Here, Noah was safe.
Here, we were happy.
And tomorrow, we’d get up and do it all again.
May you like
Together.
The end.
