Last night my son h.i.t me and I didn’t cry. This morning I got out the nice tablecloth, served breakfast like on special occasions, and when he came downstairs smiling he said, “So you finally learned your lesson”… until he saw who was waiting for him at my table.

I didn’t move an inch, but instead, I poured a cup of hot coffee and placed it in front of the chair where Harrison was sitting. Wyatt looked up and the biscuit fell from his hand as he realized his father was sitting right there in front of him.

“What the hell is he doing here?” Wyatt demanded.

“Sit down, Wyatt,” Harrison said as he clasped his hands on the table with a stillness that filled the entire kitchen.

“I asked you what he is doing in our house,” Wyatt shouted.

“And I told you to sit your ass down,” Harrison replied without needing to raise his voice.

Wyatt looked at me, searching for the usual moment where I would soften the blow or offer him an excuse, but he found nothing but a firm boundary.

“Sit down, Wyatt,” I told him, and he noticed that my voice was no longer filled with the pleading fear he was used to.

He roughly dragged a chair out and slumped into it while Harrison slid the brown folder into the center of the table.

“It is ridiculous that you think you can hit your mother and then just walk down to breakfast as if nothing happened,” Harrison said.

“I didn’t hit her, it was just an argument that got a little loud,” Wyatt spat back.

“I saw the mark on her face, Wyatt,” Harrison countered.

“It was just a push,” Wyatt lied, turning to me with a bitter look.

“So now you are going to hide behind my dad? How brave of you, Mom,” he sneered.

“I called him because last night I realized that I cannot handle your violence alone anymore,” I replied.

Harrison opened the folder and took out the first sheet of paper, which was a request for a temporary protection order.

“This depends entirely on what you do today, but here is the cancellation of your access to your mother’s bank accounts and her truck,” Harrison explained.

He then placed a third paper on the table which was a legal notice preventing Wyatt from returning if he didn’t follow the rules. Finally, he left a brochure for a residential treatment center in Vermont that specialized in anger management and substance abuse.

“Your mother agreed to give you one chance at this center before she formally reports the assault to the police,” Harrison added.

“Do you really want to lock me up like I am some kind of crazy person?” Wyatt asked me with shock in his eyes.

“No, I think you have become dangerous to me and to yourself,” I told him.