There was no dramatic applause.
No triumphant music.
We went home.
George dropped his backpack in the hallway.
Jeffrey took off his shoes.
I made grilled cheese sandwiches.
Then the three of us sat around the same kitchen table where Vanessa had demanded fifty-one percent of my company.
For several minutes, nobody spoke.
Finally George said, “So… we don’t have to move?”
“No.”
“Anywhere?”
“No.”
He nodded.
Then he started crying.
Not dramatically.
Just quietly.
All the fear he’d been carrying finally came out.
Jeffrey cried too.
So did I.
We sat at that kitchen table with grilled cheese getting cold between us and cried until there was nothing left.
Later that evening, George asked something that surprised me.
“What happens to Mom now?”
Mom.
He almost never called Vanessa that.
“I don’t know.”
“Can she still see us?”
“Under the court’s rules, yes, if you both feel comfortable and the process goes well.”
