Chapter 13 - THE RESTRAINING ORDER
Three days later, a family court judge issued a permanent lifetime restraining order barring Vivian from coming within one mile of Emma, Oliver, or me, alongside mandatory criminal prosecution for elder and dependent adult abuse. Vivian sat at the defense table looking shrunken, her immaculate wardrobe and styled hair feeling utterly out of place in a federal courtroom. She tried to catch my eye, looking for that old maternal authority, but I looked right through her as if she were made of transparent glass. She had spent her life treating human beings as chess pieces to satisfy her ego; now, she was entirely alone, abandoned by the very society she had manipulated for decades.
