In Julian’s mind, he had executed the ultimate power move, flawlessly.

He had left his wife stranded six thousand miles away, without money or identification or any way home, and by the time I managed to claw my way to an embassy and back to the States, weeks would have passed, weeks during which he would have filed for emergency sole custody, claimed that I had abandoned our child in Thailand and run off, and seized control of our marital assets on the strength of that lie.

It was, from his perspective, perfect.

The abandoned mother makes the perfect villain in a custody case, and he had, he believed, manufactured an abandoned mother out of thin air, on a beach, with a canceled ticket and a stolen passport.