The package I made up was a USB drive. Our doorbell camera covers the front room through the archway and it had recorded all of it, the ball being handed over, the instruction, and the conversation in the hallway afterward. I put the drive in a box with a printed still and a short note saying I would be sending the same file to her ex-husband’s solicitor on Monday unless she paid for the television. Their custody arrangement was being reviewed at the time. That is what the screaming phone call was about.
She paid. Two thousand eight hundred, in four instalments, and she has never once mentioned my cups or my sauce since.
I never sent the file anywhere. I deleted it in front of her that January, on her kitchen table, because the boys are five and seven and none of it was theirs to carry.
The older one asked me last summer why the television was different. I told him it broke and that grown-ups sort out broken things, and he seemed satisfied.
I spent years swallowing every remark to keep a peace that was only ever peaceful for her. I have stopped confusing quiet with kindness. Being treated well is not something I have to earn by never objecting.
