My son sobbed the entire drive to his grandmother’s house. “Daddy, please don’t leave me here.” My wife snapped, “You’re babying him.” I left him anyway. Three hours later, a neighbor called. “Your little boy ran to my house shaking. He’s hiding under my bed and won’t stop crying.”

The emergency hearing that afternoon took place over video conference because the judge handling protective orders was at another courthouse. William sat in a small consultation room at the hospital with his lawyer, Wendell Kaine, a broad-shouldered man in his sixties whose courtroom politeness concealed a predatory intelligence William found immediately reassuring. Wendell had represented faculty members in ugly divorces and one high-profile custody case involving a physician accused falsely of addiction. He reviewed evidence like an engineer reviews a bridge collapse: calmly, precisely, with absolute commitment to tracing the failure back to its source.

Marsha attended from the police station holding room with a public defender present for the criminal side and a privately retained family lawyer patched in separately. Even on a grainy screen, her posture was flawless. Her face, however, had changed. She looked tired, brittle, and furious in ways makeup could not hide.