The blue ceramic vase hit the hardwood floor before I understood what was happening.

It had belonged to my father.

My mother had brought it with her when she moved into our apartment after he died, and now it lay in six pieces beside the dining table.

Brandon stood over her.

My mother, Margaret, had one hand pressed against her cheek.

“Where is the money?”

She stared at him.

“What money?”

“The ten thousand five hundred dollars from my desk.”

“Brandon, I have never opened your desk.”

He hit her again.

Not hard enough to knock her down, but hard enough that she stumbled into the dining chair.

I moved between them.

“Stop.”

Brandon looked at me as if I were the one making the situation difficult.

“Your mother stole from me.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Nobody else was here.”

Mom’s lower lip trembled.

“Elena, I didn’t take anything.”

“I know.”

Brandon pointed toward the hallway.

“Then make a choice.”

I looked at him.

“What?”

“She leaves tonight, or we’re done.”

For about five seconds, nobody moved.

The dishwasher hummed in the kitchen.

A car horn sounded somewhere below our apartment.

Mom bent down as if she were going to pick up the broken vase.

I caught her wrist gently.

“Leave it.”

Then I walked into our bedroom and pulled my suitcase from the closet.

I Packed Two Suitcases

Brandon followed me.

“What are you doing?”

I opened the dresser.

“Leaving.”

“I said she leaves.”

“I heard you.”

He stood in the doorway while I folded two sweaters into the suitcase.

For seven years, I had been the person who calmed things down.

If Brandon was angry, I waited.

If he spent too much, I adjusted our budget.

If his mother needed help with a medical bill, I wrote the check.

If his brother Lucas needed money to keep his contracting business running, Brandon called it a family emergency.

I usually agreed.

There had always been an explanation.

This time there wasn’t one.

Brandon lowered his voice.

“Elena, think about what you’re doing.”

I zipped the suitcase.

“I am.”

“You’re throwing away seven years because your mother can’t keep her hands off things that don’t belong to her.”

I stopped.

“Don’t say that again.”

“Why? Because you don’t want to hear it?”

I picked up my purse.

“Because you don’t know it’s true.”

Mom was waiting by the front door in her slippers, holding the cardigan she had been wearing when Brandon confronted her.

She looked smaller than she had that morning.

There was already discoloration along her cheekbone.

She whispered, “You don’t have to leave because of me.”

I took her overnight bag.

“Yes, I do.”

Brandon stayed near the kitchen.

“If you walk out that door, don’t expect to come back tomorrow like nothing happened.”

I opened the door.

“I’m not planning to.”

We spent that night in a hotel ten minutes away.

Mom sat on the edge of one bed while I called a local clinic that was still open.

The doctor examined her face, documented the bruising and took photographs for her medical record.

Afterward, we went to the police station.

By then it was after midnight.

Mom kept rubbing her hands together in her lap.

When we finished the report and stepped back into the parking lot, she stopped beside my car.

“I feel terrible.”

“Why?”

“I never wanted to destroy your marriage.”

I put her bag in the back seat.

“You didn’t.”

She looked at me.

I closed the trunk.

“He did.”

It sounded simple when I said it.

Maybe that was why it bothered me so much.

The Numbers I Had Stopped Asking About

Brandon called the next morning.

I let it ring twice before answering.

“Where are you?”

“With Mom.”

“Come home.”

No apology.

No question about her face.

Just come home.

“I’m filing for divorce.”

There was silence.

Then he laughed once.

“You’re serious?”

“Yes.”

“Over one argument?”

I looked across the hotel room.

Mom was asleep with a cold pack wrapped in a towel against her cheek.

“It wasn’t an argument.”

“Elena, she stole ten thousand dollars from us.”

“From you, apparently. Yesterday you said it was in your desk.”

He paused.

“Same difference.”

That phrase stayed with me.

Same difference.

I opened my laptop.

For the previous month, I had been downloading financial statements without telling Brandon.

I had started because our savings balance made no sense.

We should have had close to $240,000.

Instead, there was less than $70,000.

I had asked Brandon twice.

The first time, he said money had been moved into investments.

The second time, he told me our accountant was reorganizing things for tax purposes.

I had accepted both answers.

Now I opened the spreadsheet I had made.

“Where is the rest of our savings?”

He stopped talking.

“What?”

“Almost a hundred and seventy thousand dollars is gone.”

“We’ve discussed this.”

“No. You’ve talked around it.”

“I’m not doing this while you’re upset.”

I clicked another tab.

“Then explain the credit card.”

Another pause.

“What credit card?”

“The one with sixty-five thousand dollars on it.”

“Business expenses.”

“It’s a personal card.”

“Some expenses overlap.”

I stared at the screen.

There was one more number.

That one frightened me more than the others.

“What about the ninety-thousand-dollar loan?”

His voice changed.

“Where did you see that?”

That was my answer.

“It’s in both our names.”

“We’ll talk about it when you come home.”

“I didn’t sign for it.”

“Elena.”

“Did you sign my name?”

“Don’t start accusing me of crimes because you’re angry.”

I leaned back in the hotel chair.

“Did you?”

He didn’t answer.

Instead he said, “Your mother gets in your head for one month and suddenly I’m the enemy.”

I looked at the transaction history.