The twenty-ninth strike landed just as my daughter began singing Happy Birthday to herself.

The family court hearing in downtown Boston lasted nineteen minutes.

It wasn't a trial; it was an execution.

Judge Margaret Vance—who had known my grandfather back when they were both cutting their teeth on railroad bankruptcies in the seventies—didn't even look at Caleb’s court-appointed attorney from the public defender’s office. She spent three minutes reading Everett’s affidavit detailing the medical report from the Greenwich hospital where I’d had my back examined on Sunday night, two minutes reviewing the financial disclosures showing that Caleb’s personal net worth was currently minus four million dollars, and fourteen seconds signing the final decree.

“Full custody granted to the mother,” Judge Vance said, her gavel coming down with a dry, sharp crack that echoed off the walnut paneling of Room 4B. “No visitation without prior approval from the court-appointed psychological evaluator. Restraining order permanent across all New England jurisdictions.”

Caleb didn't say a word.

He sat at the defense table in a cheap grey suit he must have bought off the rack at a discount store in downtown Hartford, his hands folded in his lap, staring down at the grain of the table as if he were trying to memorize the pattern of the wood.

When we walked out into the corridor, Everett and Silas were waiting by the tall gothic windows that looked out over the Public Garden.

Sophie was holding Silas’s hand, swinging her small pink sneakers back and forth against the marble baseboard while Silas—the most feared options trader on the eastern seaboard—patiently explained how the bronze ducks in the park stayed warm during the winter.

“Is it over, Mommy?” Sophie asked, looking up as I approached.

“It’s over, baby,” I said, kneeling down to brush a stray curl out of her eyes. “We’re going home now.”

“Can we stop for ice cream?”

“We can stop for whatever you want,” Everett said, walking over and placing his heavy hand on my shoulder—right over the spot where the leather strap had left its mark. “The car’s downstairs. Silas already told the driver to take us to the place with the chocolate sprinkles on Newbury Street.”

As we rode the elevator down to the underground garage, I caught my reflection in the polished bronze doors of the car.

I wasn't the woman who had walked out of the investment firm six years ago to play at being an ordinary suburban wife. I wasn't the woman who had spent thirty minutes counting the stripes on a Persian rug while her daughter sang Happy Birthday to herself under a mahogany table.