Chapter 13 - The Slap Amanda Refused To Romanticize
Amanda also had to account for her own conduct.
Brooke’s statement in the living room had been vicious.
Amanda’s rage was understandable.
But by the time she slapped Brooke, Ethan was already physically safe behind her and Tyler had stopped attacking.
The slap was retaliation.
Amanda admitted that.
Her attorney advised against trying to turn it into self-defense.
She agreed.
“I hit her because I was furious,” Amanda said in her statement. “Not because I needed to protect myself.”
That honesty mattered.
Brooke chose not to pursue the matter beyond documenting it through counsel, partly because the broader domestic and corporate conflict was already complicated enough. But Amanda still began therapy, and one of the first things she told Ethan later—using language suitable for a four-year-old—was that Mommy should not have hit Brooke once everybody had stopped fighting.
Ethan asked:
“Even if she was mean?”
“Even then.”
“Why?”
“Because stopping someone and getting revenge are different.”
He considered that.
Then said, “Tyler didn’t stop.”
Amanda felt the weight of how children connect adult examples.
“No,” she said. “And that’s why the grown-ups have to show you better.”
That became part of Amanda’s recovery too.
She wanted Ethan to remember his mother as the person who came through the door and protected him.
May you like
Not as the adult who taught him that rage makes hitting acceptable once danger has already passed.
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