Page 58 of Her Ex-Husband's Brother

The deputy touches his shoulder mic. “214. Verbal domestic. Three adults on scene. One male appears to be in crisis, non-combative. Start one additional. CIT if available.”

Then, to August: “You can stay there. You don’t have to talk to EMS if you don’t want to, but you do need to stay where I can see you until I figure out what happened.”

The other officer separates me out and questions me.

“Was there any threat made to Mr. Coleman verbally?”

I breathe out. Thinking straight when I’m so angry is difficult, but I want to be absolutely clear with each answer so Jake can’t twist anything against me.

“No,” I say. “August repeatedly asked Jake to leave. At one point August called Jake a pig but that was the only insultexchanged from August’s end. Jake was the one doing all the talking. We just kept asking him to leave.”

The deputy asks if I threatened Jake verbally.

“No,” I say.

He asks about the alleged lunge.

I hold the officer’s gaze. “August took a step toward him, then stopped and stepped back. No physical contact was made. You can ask anyone in this park what they saw. Everyone witnessed it.”

He writes something in his notepad as the other cop begins questioning those standing around. Thankfully Raven stays beside August, who’s still standing ramrod straight, back to staring at nothing.

The officer continues his questions. “What about the matter of theft Mr. Coleman has accused you of?”

“He’s still legally my husband,” I say, careful to keep my voice monotone.

Jake weaponizes any emotionality against me?

Fine.

I’ll be a robot and report only facts.

“He cut off access to our shared bank accounts,” I say. “I retrieved only my own items from our house. If Jake wants to dispute the assets of community property to be divided in the divorce, I welcome him to do so in family court.”

The officer’s pen slows. He looks up.

Jake is talking to two officers simultaneously with the fluid ease of a man who is extremely comfortable in this situation and in his privilege.

I watch the officers’ body language shift toward his warmth. His voice carries. Not the words themselves, since they’ve moved further away. Just that bottomless,oh so reasonableregister.

I watch it working even though the officers have seemed to take what August and I said at face value.

If it’s our word against Jake’s, I can’t be completely sure August won’t end up in the back of a police cruiser tonight.

But then Rosa, the park manager, appears at the lead officer’s elbow.

She’s a small-statured woman in her late sixties who’s been managing the property for six years. She loves kicking back with Mom and a few of the other ladies with a pitcher of Mom’s mixed margaritas. Thus far I’ve turned down the invitations to join, but Mom has told me what a spitfire Rosa is.

She arrives and introduces herself to the officer, along with the camera footage she had her grandson help her link to her phone. She loves keeping an eye on every inch of the park and is happy to run the replay of Jake’s arrival and the next ten minutes before he called 911.

I could hug the woman, but I stay in my corner where the deputy put me, anxiously watching August out of my periphery.

I see him watching Rosa, too.

Slowly, August’s posture straightens out and his head lifts back up. So that by the time EMS arrives on scene, he’s able to stand tall and calm as he declines the need for any medical attention.

It still takes a long time, and I don’t miss how August’s hand hanging down at his side is still shaking.

The senior officer comes back.