My divorce was moving forward, uncontested in every way that mattered, because there was nothing for Ethan to contest; the prenup was airtight, the house was gone and legally mine to have sold, and the chat logs and photographs made any attempt to paint me as the villain a losing proposition his own lawyer surely advised against.

Ethan, deprived of the house he had never owned and the wife whose income and property he had taken for granted, was living in an extended-stay motel by the highway.

Patricia, it turned out, had been funding a good deal of her lifestyle on credit, and had maxed out several cards.

Megan had started, quietly, selling her designer handbags online.

Patricia told everyone who would listen that I had destroyed their family.