Security handled the rest.
Three weeks after the verdict, Diego appeared in my driveway on a Thursday evening. He’d been drinking heavily, and he was in that particular state of alcoholic anger where the grievances feel enormous and all the exits have been sealed. He was blaming me for his mother’s imprisonment, for his debt, for Jessica, for his eviction. He was waving a beer bottle and making vague threatening noises about what might happen to my perfect little life.
When he said that something should happen to take away what I’d built, I pulled out my phone.
He threw the bottle at my car. It shattered the rear window.
He was still sitting on my front steps, crying into his hands, when the police arrived eight minutes later.
He was charged with public intoxication, disturbing the peace, and destruction of property. The DUI case he’d been carrying for three months, from the incident with the borrowed car and the mailbox, was heard the following week. The judge sentenced him to six months in county jail, a two-year license suspension, and mandatory alcohol treatment. He was served with the restraining order when he got out.
Mercedes, who had escalated from phone calls to appearing at Ellie’s school claiming family visitation rights, received her own restraining order at the same hearing. The judge reviewed the evidence, noted the harassment pattern, and granted the order for five years without particular drama.
There was a strange peace in that courtroom that felt nothing like the peace I’d imagined all those years. I hadn’t fantasized about any of this. I’d just wanted my money back and my daughter safe. What I ended up with was a clean perimeter around our lives, drawn with legal precision, holding.
