in a quiet, modest hotel near downtown Milwaukee.
Her left cheek was badly swollen and bruised.
She sat on the edge of the bed while I carefully adjusted an ice pack against her face.
“Are you really going to divorce him over this?” she asked quietly.
“Yes, Mom,” I answered. “I am absolutely getting a divorce.”
She squeezed my hand tightly.
“Then I promise you won’t go through this alone.”
My close friend Claire, a sharp family-law attorney, came to the hotel shortly afterward.
The moment she saw my mother’s
