You might never have the micro-motor control to operate again.”

The relief turned to ash in my mouth. I had cut the malignancy out — and it might have taken the thing I loved most with it.

Chapter 5 — Phantom Limbs

Revenge is a cold meal, and it doesn’t nourish you. The months that followed were split cleanly in two.

For them, the fall was total. Barbara was denied bail; the judge, having watched the unedited 4K footage of an unprovoked, brutal attack, called her a flight risk and a danger, and she sat in a concrete cell in Twin Towers, stripped of her cashmere and her pride, facing years in prison.

David’s version was more pathetic. With the joint assets frozen and the civil suit pending, he couldn’t afford a defense attorney, and his extended family — having seen the police report and heard the leaked audio of his indifference — blocked his number.

Through investigators I hired to monitor the restraining order, I heard he was living out of his repossessed BMW downtown, eating cold gas-station sandwiches in the rain, staring at divorce papers he couldn’t afford to fight.