Separating emotionally was not enough; Ansel had signed documents — the lease guaranty, the arrangements around the debts — that put their shared assets at real risk, and Odalind needed to protect herself legally, immediately.

Most of the savings he’d drained had been money she herself had put in, earmarked for a home, for the child they’d supposedly couldn’t afford.

That afternoon, she began the divorce.

When Wilhelmina heard, she came to the building with Sorrel and rang the bell for fifteen minutes, and then started shouting through the door — that Odalind had destroyed the family, that she was throwing away five years over one dinner.

Odalind turned on the voice recorder on her phone, stepped close to the door, and said, clearly, that it had never been about one dinner; it had been about years of contempt, stolen money, lies, and being grabbed hard enough to leave marks — and that they could leave now or she’d call the police.

When Sorrel yelled that Odalind owed them for the expensive restaurant meal, Odalind almost laughed.