“I need to take you into the bathroom and take pictures,” the caseworker said, compassionately, but firmly. “I need pictures of the bruises on your face and body, in good light, without makeup. We’ll want to get a restraining order filed against your husband, and if you decide you want a divorce, we’ll need evidence of this beating for both of the judges, the one for the restraining order and the one who we’ll be filing the divorce papers with—”

That last had a tentative sound to it; Jennie knew why. This was the moment when fifty percent of the women who had been abused backed out. “It was just once,” they’d say. “He was drunk; he’s fine when he’s sober.” “He’ll change, I know he will—”

But it wasn’t just once, he never got sober, and he never changed. Not without years of therapy, anyway. And all too often, the ones who walked back into those marriages came out again on a stretcher or a slab—

Jennie more than half expected that, faced with the word divorce, Toni would be one of those fifty percent.

But instead, Toni’s head came up a little. “I want a divorce,” she said, thickly. “He doesn’t like Ryan and Jill. If he can blame me for—for—” Her voice broke, for just a moment. “If he can blame me, how much longer will it be before he blames them?”

“You want the facts?” the caseworker said, with a weary sigh. “You sound like you’ve thought this through. My guess is maybe a couple of weeks; then he’ll not only beat you, he’ll start pounding them in the name of ‘discipline.’ The man is sick. You are not a doctor, and it’s not your job to make him well.”

“I want a divorce,” Toni replied. “I want my babies taken where he can’t hurt them, and I want a divorce.”

The caseworker met Jennie’s eyes for a moment, and gave her a furtive thumbs-up, before turning back to Toni Calligan. “Is your life in any immediate danger?” she asked. “Are the kids? Can you stick this out for the forty-eight hours we need?”

Toni considered this for a moment. “I think we’ll be all right for that long,” she replied after a moment. “I won’t change my mind, but I think we can keep out of his way.”