Six months later, on a crisp autumn afternoon, the sunlight came through the open balcony doors of my fifth-floor home and fell across the dark hardwood floor where, half a year before, sixty frozen dinners had spilled across the room.

I was at my kitchen island in a soft cashmere sweater, drinking black tea, when Darcy let herself in with two iced coffees and her ever-present leather folder, her heels clicking across the floor — a sound that had once, in another life, made my heart race with dread, and now only made me smile.

“Happy Monday, Sloan,” she said, setting a coffee in front of me.

“I come bearing gifts from the Cook County Courthouse.”

“The final decree?”

She slid a stapled set of documents across the quartz, stamped with a heavy red seal.