Chapter 13
Elise faced Travis directly only once before the divorce settlement.
The meeting occurred in a neutral conference room with attorneys present.
No Augusto.
That was Elise’s choice.
Travis looked tired.
Older somehow.
“Elise.”
She did not respond to the familiarity.
He continued.
“I never wanted anything to happen to Anna.”
Elise looked at him.
“You blocked the door.”
“I thought your mother—”
“My mother?”
He stopped.
“Your mother.”
His face tightened.
“I thought Mom was right that you were panicking.”
“You canceled my appointment.”
“I was trying to stop everything from becoming an emergency.”
“It was an emergency.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“You prevented me from finding out.”
Silence.
Elise pushed a copy of the postpartum plan toward him.
“You wrote this.”
“Yes.”
“You planned to control who could visit me.”
“I was trying to protect our marriage from your father.”
“You planned to decide when I could work.”
“You were having a baby.”
“You planned to document me as unstable if I refused.”
Travis’s composure broke.
“You don’t understand what it was like being married into your family.”
Elise sat back.
There it was.
The motive he had been carrying like permission.
“Then tell me.”
“Your father enters a room and everyone changes. Your phone rings, you answer because it might be him. He buys houses like other people buy dinner. Every decision somehow comes back to what Augusto thinks.”
Elise listened.
Some of it was true.
Augusto had been overbearing.
His influence had entered their marriage.
Travis continued.
“I wanted one thing that was ours.”
“A family?”
“Yes.”
“You could have asked me to build one with you.”
“I did.”
“No.”
Elise’s voice remained calm.
“You decided family meant I stopped belonging to anyone except you.”
Travis looked down.
She continued.
“You were angry at my father because he controlled rooms. So you built a smaller room and controlled me.”
He had no answer.
His resentment explained the architecture of the abuse.
It did not make the structure less abusive.
Elise stood.
“I hope you become a better father than you were husband.”
Travis looked up.
“Does that mean—”
“It means Anna deserves whatever version of you can learn not to own people.”
Then Elise left.
May you like
She did not ask whether he still loved her.
Love had stopped being the useful question.
