We filed the emergency petition for divorce.

We pulled the bank records — five years of them — that proved, beyond any possible argument, that I and I alone had paid the mortgage, funded the household, and carried the entire financial weight of a marriage in which I had been treated as staff.

We secured an emergency court order freezing every joint account Julian and Fiona could touch.

And then Darcy did two things that I will admit gave me a cold and uncomplicated pleasure.

First, using the black titanium credit card that Julian himself had handed me that morning, she authorized an immediate twenty-five-thousand-dollar retainer for her firm — so that my husband’s own card would pay for the divorce he had provoked.

And second, she picked up the phone and placed an order, with a local industrial supplier, for two very large, custom-made cardboard boxes.