My mother didn’t answer.
Ryan walked out through the kitchen door.
For seventeen seconds, she stood completely still.
Then she reached for her phone.
He came back before she could unlock it.
The baseball bat hung at his side.
My mother backed away.
“Ryan.”
“Last chance.”
“Put that down.”
“The envelope.”
“No.”
Ryan raised the bat.
I had seen violence before.
Real violence.
Not movies.
Not television.
The ugly kind, where bodies do not move beautifully and nobody says the perfect thing.
Still, nothing prepared me to watch my husband strike my mother.
The first blow caught her shoulder.
She screamed.
The second caught her ribs as she turned away.
She fell sideways into the table.
Her glasses flew from her face.
Ryan stood over her.
He was breathing hard.
My mother didn’t move.
Then he looked toward the hallway.
Not at her.
Not at the woman he had just injured.
