Sarah could have kept me focused entirely on the fight, on Julian, on the money, and I would have followed her anywhere.

Instead, at the very beginning, she turned me back toward myself.

Whatever happened in the courtrooms and the depositions, she wanted me to walk out the other side as a whole person and not merely as a victorious one.

It was, I realize now, the single most important thing anyone said to me in that whole terrible season, and it had nothing to do with the law at all.

I have since passed that same advice along to two other women in situations like mine, both times almost word for word, because I have come to believe it is the truest thing I learned in all of it.