David was a friend from law school — I had gone to law school before deciding my talents lay in reading companies rather than arguing about them — and he was now a senior partner at one of the best family law firms in the city.

I trusted him, which mattered, because I was about to hand him the most vulnerable materials of my life and ask him to be unsentimental with them.

I gave him everything: the screenshots, the receipts, the bank statements, and the official written statement I had obtained from the gate agent in Madrid, documenting to the minute the moment my husband had left me behind.

David read through the stack slowly, and when he looked up, he asked the question a good attorney asks.

“Are you seeking spousal support?”

“No,” I said.