A stable house with family support, not a crowded apartment where access to transportation could become leverage.
Derek looked smaller in that room than he ever had at home. Without Patricia’s kitchen, without her routines, without her constant interruptions, he was just a man being asked to account for his choices.
For once, he couldn’t shrug reality away.
The agreement we reached wasn’t dramatic, but it was real. He would sign the car over in exchange for my dropping any claim beyond reimbursement for what I had paid into the loan. Child support would be formalized. Visitation would begin with scheduled daytime visits while he found steady work and his own housing. Patricia’s opinions, for the first time, held absolutely no legal weight.
She hated that.
When she tried to interrupt, the mediator redirected her once. Then twice. By the third time, even Derek looked embarrassed.
I sat there feeling something I hadn’t felt in months.
Level.
Not triumphant. Not cruel. Not vindicated.
Just level.
Like the floor under me no longer tilted according to someone else’s temper.