Every time my brother-in-law drove me home, I would lose consciousness and wake up with unexplained aches and pains. My husband would only laugh and say, “You’re just out of shape, that’s all.” After the fourth ride, I secretly slipped a voice recorder into my purse and said nothing. That night, I listened to a phone conversation between the two of them that revealed my blackouts had never been accidental.

“That’s an allegation we’ll test against the records,” Ellis said.

I thought about the deleted years of small arguments Julian had turned into proof that I was unstable.

He had gathered our private life into a folder and labeled it treatment.

I wanted to tear every page apart.

That evening, Priya and I wrote down the practical things I could verify without putting myself in danger: my usual signature style, the dates I had been at work, the appointments I had actually scheduled, and the doctors I knew.

The next day, my mother sent scanned copies of several older signed documents after confirming a secure way to provide them.