I looked at my son.
“Marcus, is this what you want?”
He did not answer.
“Marcus. Look at me. Is this what you want?”
He swallowed.
“I just want peace, Mom.”
I nodded once.
Then I opened the library door and stepped into the hallway.
I walked through the foyer full of strangers, past Cordelia, who was pretending to arrange napkins, and stopped at the front door because I heard a small voice behind me.
“Grammy?”
I turned.
Ethan stood at the edge of the living room, his blue face paint half melting, a paper cup of juice in his hand.
He looked at me with the open, uncomplicated love of a seven-year-old who had just been told his grandmother was not coming, only to see her walking out the door.
“Grammy, why are you leaving?”
I knelt on the marble floor of the foyer I had paid for and opened my arms.
He ran to me.
I held him. I smelled his hair. I pressed my cheek against the side of his head and forced every tear in my body to stay where it was.
“Sweetheart,” I whispered, “Grammy has to go. But I left you a telescope. It’s in the library. When you use it, I want you to look for Saturn’s rings and remember that Grammy saw them with you, even when she wasn’t there. Do you understand?”
He nodded into my shoulder.
“I love you, Ethan. More than all the stars you’re about to see.”
The doorbell rang behind us.
Vanessa had actually done it.
Two officers stood on the front steps, their faces neutral in the careful way professionals keep their faces neutral when they know they have walked into something ugly and domestic and expensive.
Vanessa moved past me before I could speak.
“She’s refusing to leave,” she said. “This is our home. She is not welcome here.”
One officer looked at me.
Then at the child in my arms.
Then around the foyer, at the marble, the balloons, the champagne flutes, the guests pretending not to listen.
“Ma’am,” he said carefully, “is there somewhere else you can go for now?”
I looked at Marcus.
My son said nothing.
That was answer enough.
I kissed Ethan’s forehead.
Then I stood, picked up my purse, and walked out my own front door.
The officers did not touch me.
They did not need to.
My son’s silence had done enough.
I got into my Range Rover, drove down the long driveway, and did not look back.
There was nothing behind me that belonged to me anymore.