Not rage.
Not grief.
Something cleaner.
She blocked all three numbers before midnight.
The next morning, Jenna came over with a paper coffee cup, a folder, and the expression of a woman who had been waiting for Mallory to stop protecting people who would not protect her.
“I made a copy of everything from work,” Jenna said.
Mallory stared at the folder.
Jenna shrugged.
“You trained me,” she said. “If it’s not documented, someone else will rewrite it.”
For the first time in days, Mallory smiled.
It was small.
It hurt.
But it was real.
Over the next week, Mallory changed locks.
She removed her mother from the spare key list.
She checked every old account and closed the places where her father’s outdated information still lingered.
She updated emergency contacts.
She saved the police report number in a folder with the hospital call log, the workplace incident report, the ambulance dispatch record, the one-dollar receipt, and every message her father had sent.
