Enough to make my expectation clear.
“Let go.”
Instead, Derek stepped closer.
“You don't get to order me around.”
“You’re grabbing me.”
“You grabbed me first.”
“No.”
“You touched my wrist.”
That had happened several minutes earlier when he jabbed a finger near my face during the argument.
I had pushed his hand downward.
Nothing more.
He had apparently been waiting to reinterpret it.
My father stepped forward.
“Derek.”
Derek lifted one hand.
“I’ve got this.”
That phrase.
I still remember it.
I’ve got this.
As though the backyard were a scene.
As though family members were suspects.
As though escalation itself were competence.
I looked at the body camera centered on his chest.
The red indicator light was on.
“Good.”
He frowned.
“What?”
“Keep recording.”
Something flickered across his face.
Then disappeared.
“You worried about the camera?”
“No.”
“Maybe you should be.”
“Why?”
“Because it caught you putting hands on an officer.”
I looked at his grip around my wrist.
Then at him.
“It’s also catching this.”
Derek’s face hardened.
He pulled the handcuffs from his belt.
My mother gasped.
“Derek, stop.”
Grandma Evelyn stood.
My father moved around the table.
Derek pointed toward him.
“Stay back.”
Dad froze.
Not because he feared Derek.
Because the command came from a uniformed deputy with a full duty belt, and some instincts become automatic after enough decades in America.
I looked at Derek.
“If you put those on me, you’d better be able to articulate why.”
He smiled.
“There it is again.”
“What?”
“You think you're untouchable.”
“No.”
“Put your hands behind your back.”
“No.”
Todd whispered:
“Derek…”
Derek stepped behind me.
“Do not make this worse.”
I felt something cold close around my wrist.
Click.
The metal tightened.
He twisted my arm slightly.
I turned my shoulder to reduce the pressure.
My mother started crying.
My father shouted.
“Take that off her.”
Derek pushed me forward one step.
“Back up.”
I planted my feet.
“Stop shoving me.”
“Then cooperate.”
“I am standing still.”
He tightened the cuff another notch.
Pain bit into the wrist.
Grandma Evelyn’s voice cut across the yard.
“Derek Nolan.”
Everyone stopped.
She stood beside her chair.
Small.
Seventy-six.
Furious.
“You take that thing off my granddaughter.”
Derek looked genuinely surprised.
“Grandma, stay out of this.”
Her face changed.
Nobody told Evelyn Carter to stay out of family business.
Ever.
She pointed at him.
“You came into this yard carrying that badge like God signed it personally.”
“Grandma—”
“You touch her again and I’ll show you exactly how old I am not.”
Under different circumstances, I might have smiled.
Derek didn’t.
He turned back toward me.
“Maybe this will finally teach you some respect.”
Then he shoved my shoulder.
Harder this time.
I stepped forward to absorb it.
The second half of the handcuff swung beneath my wrist.
My father moved again.