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Frowning, I respond flatly, “Dylan Everett clearly had a lot to say about me. Did he tell you about himself at all?”

“Just that he went to prison for a crime he didn’t commit. He also said you told everyone I died. Did you tell people I died?”

“Yes. I did what I had to do to keep you safe.”

“Keep me safe? What does that even mean?”

Then he turns to Sabre. “Are you helpin’ her hide me? Is that what all the cameras are really for?”

That’s about the time the shock wears off, and I fully come to my senses. “Noah, listen to me. Your father wasn’t a good man. He hurt me and went to jail for it. I can prove it with real paperwork instead of fake paperwork.”

I grab the firebox that Talon and the prospects dropped off and set it on the coffee table between us. I roll the combination barrels until the proper sequence is in place and hear the lock click open and pull out a large file folder that looks like it’s seen better days and hand it to my son.

“I didn’t tell you any of this because I thought you were too young. I didn’t want to spoil your childhood. I thought your father would be in jail for two more years and I planned to explain all this before he was released. But you’re nine now and deserve real answers to the important questions you’re asking.”

He opens the folder with shaking hands, and it’s all right there: the police report and photocopied pictures that show injuries but not much detail because they were Polaroids that didn’t copy well.

I don’t say it out loud because my son respects authority. After the head job Dylan did on him, I already know Noah isn’t going to accept words. Reading it will be easier for him to understand and less emotional than hearing me talk about how his father beat me up and put me in the hospital. I don’t want to sound like a victim. Noah already has a history of reading about wars. But I think that reading about military strategy and equipment is a far cry from learning about someone you love being harmed.

Sabre and I sit there while he turns page after page until he lands on the certified copy of the convictions. State of Montana versus Dylan Everett, assault with a weapons enhancement and possession with intent to distribute narcotics.

“What’s a weapons enhancement?” Noah asks without looking up.

I answer, trying to keep my emotions from coming through in my tone of voice. “It means he had charges before, and part of his sentencing was that he could no longer possess a weapon. They found one in his car when they arrested him.”

“So, was he some kind of lifelong criminal lowlife or what?”

Sabre answers before I can. “Yes.”

I speak up to soften the blow. “He was young and made some really poor decisions and suffered the consequences. I refused to marry him and left because it wasn’t safe to stay with him. Knowing him the way I do, I didn’t think you’d be safe around him either.”

Noah keeps turning pages until he comes to four witness statements. They were all from strangers at a gas station who saw what he did to me in that parking lot and told the police. Noah reads each statement carefully, while I wish he would just skip over them. In retrospect, I wish I’d gone through the file and pulled out what I wanted him to see, but knowing my son, he’d think that was sketchy.

He goes back to look at the injury map the nurse filled out when I was in the ER. It’s a line-art human with all the injuries marked by Xs and a short explanation for each at the bottom.

He studies it and then freezes in place. His finger traces over the mark for the injury on my left arm. Glancing at my arm, he says, “You told me that was a kitchen burn, that a pan burned you.”

“I know I did, bug. I just didn’t want you to have to think about things like that until you were mature enough to understand.”

And my son starts crying again. This time, when I reach for him, he doesn’t move away. He collapses into my arms. “What’s wrong with him? Why did he hurt you and then lie to me about it?”

Sabre and I talk him through it, reassuring him that he didn’t do anything wrong and answering yet more questions. My son has so many questions. But they all make sense and are designed to help him cope.

Finally, he tells us, “I argued with him for hours. Every answer I gave him, he turned into more arguments. After a while, I couldn’t tell what was real anymore. It made my head feel sick.”

“That’s how being manipulated feels,” Sabre explains. “But you outsmarted him by having enough courage to march down those stairs and confront the people you thought might’ve done you dirty, right to our faces.”

Noah thinks about that for a few minutes and then nods. “Now that I know what manipulation feels like, I’ll recognize it next time.”

Now’s not the time to explain all the different ways people can manipulate him, so I just nod.

He reaches over to the coffee table, where he put his phone at some point in the conversation, and shoves it towards us.

“I don’t want it anymore,” he says. “I don’t ever want to talk to him again. He lied to me on purpose.”

“You should take it,” I tell Sabre. “There might be evidence on it, or he might have accidentally given us information you could use to track him. Is that okay with you, bug?”

My son nods. When Sabre picks up the phone and pockets it, Noah’s expression brightens a bit, especially when Sabre praises him. “You did exactly right by bringin’ this downstairs. Don’t worry. We’ll do everythin’ in our power to make sure he can’t contact you again.”