The flight back from Cabo San Lucas was supposed to be a victory lap for Daniel and his mother. For ten days, Evelyn had basked in the Mexican sun, sipping margaritas and loudly declaring that a week of isolation would finally teach me “the proper place of a wife.”
Daniel, validated by his mother’s toxic praise, hadn’t checked his personal email once. He didn’t see the automated alerts from our smart-home system. He didn’t see the formal legal notices. He truly believed that when he returned, he would find a broken, apologetic woman waiting on the porch with his daughter.
Instead, the taxi pulled up to the gates of the Hillcrest estate to find a massive, yellow moving truck parked in the circular driveway.
