I wake up to the sound of a coffeemaker that doesn't cost four thousand dollars, and for three full seconds I don't know where I am. Then Sarah shifts against my ribs, her knee digging into my hip, and the pullout couch springs groan beneath us.
My left cheekbone throbs when I turn my head. The bruise is a dull heat now, swollen tight under the skin, and I press two fingers to it gently—testing whether it's gotten worse overnight or whether I've just gotten used to the pain.
Mom's apartment is the size of Jake's closet—mismatched mugs on open shelves, a crochet blanket draped over the TV, the fridge humming a half-tone flat. The coffeemaker gurgles and spits, and nobody in this building is monitoring whether I'm at my desk by seven.
Sarah's breathing is slow and even behind me. I stay still for one more minute, just listening—her breath, the coffeemaker, a neighbor arguing about parking outside. The sounds of a home that isn't controlled by anyone.
Mom pours coffee into a mug that says WORLD'S BEST GRANDMA—a title she's held for four years without being allowed to use it. She sets it in front of me without a word, and I can tell from the set of her shoulders she's been awake for hours. "How long?" she asks the coffee pot.
"Mom—"
"Not the bruise. I saw the bruise last night." She turns around, and her mouth is a thin, hard line. "How long has he been hurting you?"
"Last night was the first time it was physical." I get up carefully, trying my best not to wake Sarah up, and wrap both hands around the mug and the heat bites into my palms. "The rest of it doesn't leave physical marks."
She sits across from me, and the table is so small our knees almost touch. "I knew something was wrong," she says, and her voice cracks once before she straightens it.
"Three years ago you stopped calling on Sundays. Then you stopped calling at all." She wraps both hands around her mug, mirroring me. "I told myself you were busy. But I knew."
"He didn't want me talking to you. Said you were—" I stop, because repeating Jake's word for my mother will cost me something I can't afford right now. "I should have called anyway."
"Don't you dare apologize to me." Her palm lands flat on the table, rattling both mugs. "You don't owe me an apology, Annie—you owe yourself one for staying as long as you did."
My phone buzzes on the counter—Jake's name, the fifth time since yesterday. A text preview glows: I'm sorry. Call me. We can fix this.
Thirty seconds later, another: You're being dramatic. Come home. The pendulum between tenderness and fury, swinging so fast it makes me seasick from across a kitchen table. I turn the phone face-down.
Sarah appears in my peripheral view, trailing the crochet blanket behind her like a royal train. Her hair is a monument to static electricity and she's blinking at the kitchen lights like she's landed on a new planet.
"Mommy, this couch is very loud." She climbs into my lap with the boneless confidence of someone who weighs thirty-two pounds. "It goes CREEK CREEK when I move."
"That's its personality," Mom says, already reaching for the juice. "It's been creaking since your mommy was your age."
Sarah touches my cheek with one careful finger, right over the bruise. "Does it still hurt?"
"Only a little." I catch her hand and kiss her knuckles. "It's getting better already."
She nods, satisfied, then spots the crayons on the counter and squirms out of my lap toward them. I set her up at the table with the crayons and the back of a grocery flyer, kiss the top of her head, and lock myself in the bathroom.
The mirror is unkind—my cheekbone is purple and green, the unmistakable shape of an open palm. I press a cold washcloth to it and dial Nina Torres with my free hand.
She answers on the second ring, brisk and efficient, a woman who bills four hundred an hour and sounds like every cent. I give her the short version: five years of marriage, emotional abuse, left last night, staying with my mother. I can’t afford to waste the time of a divorce lawyer of this caliber anymore.
"Do you have documentation?" she asks, curt and to the point. "Texts, emails, recordings, photos of injuries?"
"He was careful." I answer, picking my words. I highly doubt that I can prove anything, but I will not take it lying down anyway.
"They usually are. What about financial records, joint accounts?" I hear the sound of a pen scribbling.
"Everything's in his name. I don't have income, property, or a work history for the past five years." The words leave my mouth bitter and angry.
A pause that costs me roughly eleven dollars. "Ms. Murphy, what I'm about to say isn't meant to scare you, but you need to hear it clearly."
I nod first—two more dollars—then I remember that she can’t see me and scramble to answer. "I'm listening."
"Your husband has unlimited legal resources. You have a five-year employment gap and no documented income." Her voice doesn't soften. "When he files an emergency custody motion, his attorneys will argue you abandoned the marital home, that you can't provide. You need a job and a paycheck before that motion lands.”
Through the door I can hear Sarah singing something tuneless and happy. My grip on the washcloth tightens until my knuckles ache. "How fast?"
"Yesterday would've been ideal." She asks more questions—rapid, clinical—then shifts direction. "Is there anything else he could use against you? Any secrets a good attorney could weaponize?"
The bathroom tiles are cold under my bare feet. In the kitchen, Sarah is asking Mom for the red crayon, the really red one. My mind goes to a hotel room five years ago—warm hands, a voice nothing like Jake's, a night I haven't let myself think about since. "No," I say. "Nothing."
Nina tells me she'll start drafting a response for when Jake's lawyers make contact. I thank her and hang up, then stand very still with the phone pressed against my chest.
I splash water on my face—the cold clarifies nothing. When I walk back into the kitchen, Sarah is bent over the grocery flyer with the really red crayon, tongue poking between her teeth.
I pour myself a second coffee and glance down at her drawing. The air leaves my lungs in one sharp exit.
A house—square, triangle roof, chimney. Inside, a tall figure with a red face and red hands, mouth wide open.
Outside, a smaller figure carrying a rectangular suitcase, walking toward the edge of the page where the paper runs out. There are no smiles on anyone.
"That's really good, sweetheart." My voice sounds normal, which should win me some kind of award. "Who's in the picture?"
Sarah doesn't look up. "That's the loud house. The lady is leaving because it's too loud."
"Where is she going?"
She considers this, crayon pausing midstroke, then shrugs with her whole body. "Somewhere not loud."
I crouch down next to her and smooth the hair off her forehead. She leans into my hand the way a plant tilts toward a window, easy and automatic. "This is home now," I say. "Right here."
"Okay." She pulls back, already scanning the table. "Mommy, I need more crayons. Grandma only has seven and I need the really orange one for the dragon-cat's fire."
Mom catches my eye from the counter. Neither of us speaks, because there's nothing to say that a four-year-old hasn't already drawn in crayon on the back of a grocery list.