A year after the incident, my divorce was finalized.

Laura met me outside the courthouse with coffee, and we laughed together under the clear blue sky.

In the days before that family dinner, I had begun assembling a small box of things I wanted to keep from the life I’d left.

Not photographs of Spencer or expensive gifts that made me feel indebted, but records of my own survival: a faded business card from the first client who trusted me, a note from Tessa after our first profitable quarter, the list Laura had helped me write on the night I left, and the original receipt for the deposit on my first office.

None of those objects proved I’d never been afraid.