I took a sidestep and motioned for Jesse with my head. “This is Jesse. Jesse, my mom, Sonya.”

They shook hands. I asked her if it was a bad time. She said it was never a bad time to see me. I had a feeling that there was someone in her bedroom, but I really didn’t want to know, so I offered to go out and grab some takeout coffee while Jesse made herself comfortable. Mom sighed with relief while Jesse looked like she was about to stab me. I couldn’t see someone doing the walk of shame out of my mom’s room without breaking both his legs on his way out.

“My phone, please.” Jesse opened her palm and stared holes in my forehead. I produced her phone from my pocket and put it in her hand, curling her fingers around it. “Take lots of pictures of him, so I’ll know who to stab later.”

“Bane,” she hissed. She called me that because I was acting like an asshole.

“What? He fucked my mom.”

There was a line that seemingly started from the gates of hell at Starbucks, then when it was finally time to order, I found out they had run out of the complicated shit my mom usually ordered, so I had to drive to another location, and before I knew it, it had taken me twenty minutes from the moment I’d left them to the moment I came back. I walked back into Mom’s house worrying I’d find hair scattered on the floor as they’d beaten each other senseless, so I was pleasantly surprised to find them sitting in front of one another. My mom’s hand was on Jesse’s knee, and tears ran down Snowflake’s face. They were silent and brave.

I stepped into the living room, dumping the Starbucks paper bag with the double glazed donuts and sliding a cup of coffee for each of them. My mom immediately took a sip. Jesse looked up and smiled through her tears.

“I hate coffee,” she said.

I shrugged and took a sip of my latte. “Ditto.”

My mom looked between us and laughed.

“Hey, Roman, what’s the antonym of hate?”

“Jesse.”

The call came an hour later. We were standing by the door in the hallway when I told Jesse she could do whatever she wanted. Take the truck if she wanted to do it all on her own, or have me come with, if that was okay.

“For the record, I want to be there, but I know it’s not my choice.”

Mom stood next to us and smiled like we were exchanging our vows and not about to engage in a fucking war. It was the one battle I knew we didn’t need any ammo for. Snowflake was equipped with the truth, and that was the strongest weapon on earth. Jesse looked over to my mom, took her hand unexpectedly and squeezed it. “Thank you for loving my father when my mom couldn’t.”

“Thank you for becoming a girl he would be so proud of.” Mom squeezed back.

Great. Now my mother was crying, and Jesse was crying, and I really needed a blunt, a drink, and a complimentary blowie in order not to feel like we were in a This Is Us episode. They hugged. My heart felt like two pieces locking back together into something whole.

My father had been a rapist.

My girlfriend had been raped.

And yet, somehow, I had managed to make the two women in my life stronger, and proud.

I leaned against the doorframe, the keys dangling between my fingers. “So? What’s it going to be? Every minute you spend here is a minute wasted on Emery not being thrown into jail.”

That made her disconnect from my mom.

Mom wiped Jesse’s tears and smiled. “You’re stronger than your circumstances,” she said to her, in English.

Snowflake said, “Spasiba.” Then she turned to me and held out her hand. “Can you be there for me? Just in case I need someone to hold my sword for me?”

I did a little bow with my head. “Why, my princess, I thought you’d never ask.”

TIME STRETCHED BETWEEN THE MINUTE when we got into the truck and the moment my feet hit the asphalt of the police station’s parking lot. Roman made some phone calls. I was too nervous to listen to them. My mind was elsewhere. It was like I was trying to remember why old Jesse had let it happen in the first place. Why I’d let them get away with it.

I didn’t want to see their faces, their sneers, their anger. A part of me, a very ridiculous part, still wanted to please those who’d taken me under their wing when I was just the ex-poor kid from two towns over. A bigger part wanted them to pay for what they’d done to me.

“Yo, hang back for a sec,” Roman said when we leaped out of his truck, lacing his fingers through mine, both of us watching the double glass doors of the police station open as a man in a sheriff’s uniform walked out of them, yanking his belted pants up over his belly.