Julian and Evelyn had assumed that taking my phone and my passport would render me effectively non-existent, a person erased, stripped of the digital and legal proofs of her own identity and therefore reduced to nothing.

They had relied, entirely, on three things: on my silence, on my orphan status, and on my perceived isolation.

They had constructed their whole plan on the premise that a woman without a husband to speak for her had no standing, no backup, and no voice, that I was a helpless appendage to their family whose power derived solely from my marriage to Julian, and who could therefore be discarded the instant that marriage became inconvenient.

It was an understandable assumption, in a way, because it was exactly how they had always treated me, and exactly how I, to my shame, had for too long allowed myself to be treated.