You stared at him.
He had thrown your clothes through a window twenty seconds before announcing you could sleep in the living room. The speed with which he had already reframed his behavior as compromise would have been impressive if it weren’t so sickeningly familiar. This was Ethan’s favorite trick. He did something outrageous, then narrated it back to you in softer language until your outrage started sounding impolite.
“Trying to make it work,” you repeated. “By throwing my belongings onto the lawn and assigning me a couch in my own house.”
“You’re being dramatic.”
“No,” you said. “You’re finally hearing me.”
Your attorney picked up on the first ring.
Mara Levin had been your lawyer for six years and your grandmother’s before that. She was sixty, exacting, allergic to foolishness, and had once ended a mediation in twelve minutes by sliding a binder across a table and letting three men discover that underestimating quiet women was a hobby with measurable costs. When you told her, in clean clipped sentences, what Ethan had done, she didn’t gasp. She asked one question.
“Are they inside now?”
“They were. I’m on the patio. They’re both here.”
“Good,” she said. “Keep them talking. I’m sending the local deputy contact and the private security number from escrow. The locks were registered today under your ownership file. They can assist with removal if they refuse to leave. Do not let either of them sleep there tonight.”
