“You’ll stay in this room until you learn to apologize,” Russell said. “No food, no phone, no medical staff until you fix your attitude.”

The iron door slammed. The bolt slid home.

Phoebe sobbed against my shoulder. I tore a strip from my dress and wrapped it tight around her head. My hands shook with anger, but my mind was clearer than it had ever been.

I reached into the hidden lining of my handbag and pulled out an encrypted satellite phone Russell never knew I owned.

It had been in that lining for six years. I had carried it into this house on the day I moved in, and I had carried it to the hospital when Phoebe was born, and to eleven dinners where I was spoken over, and to the funeral of a man Russell owed money to, and through every single day of the marriage.

I had held it in my hand perhaps a dozen times and put it back.