THE LIFE HE TOOK FROM ME

Sarah Collins arrived the next morning with coffee and a folder. She wore a blue cardigan and shoes that looked comfortable enough to walk across the city in.

"Dr. Price gave you my number," she said. "Alexander asked if I'd come, but we don't have to talk unless you want to."

I stepped aside.

She sat at the little table by the window and asked practical questions. Did Derek control my phone? Yes. My bank account? Yes. Did I have my identification? It was in the purse he had taken downstairs.

Every answer seemed to make my life smaller.

Sarah wrote things down without looking shocked.

"We can start with a phone you control," she said. "Then documents and somewhere to stay."

"I'm staying here."

"For now. Would you like to consider other options too?"

I looked at the closed door. "He won't be offended?"

"You can ask him."

The suggestion startled me. It had been years since a question about my living arrangements felt safe to put directly to a man.

Alexander joined us later with breakfast. I asked before I could lose my nerve.

"Would you mind if I moved somewhere else?"

He set the tray down. "Do you want to?"

"I don't know yet."

"Then find out."

Sarah watched me rather than him. I realized she was waiting for my answer.

"I'd like to see what's possible."

By the afternoon, possibilities had names. A temporary apartment. A lawyer. An inexpensive phone with a number nobody in my marriage knew.

The lawyer was Rebecca Shaw. She listened to my account of the previous night, asked questions, and explained what she would need from me. I expected her to ask why I hadn't left earlier.

She asked whether I wanted to leave now.

"Yes."

"And do you want to end the marriage?"

My hand tightened around the new phone.

"Yes."

She slid a pad toward me. "Then let's begin there."

Alexander offered to cover the fees. I refused before I knew what they would cost.

"I can't owe you that much."

"You won't owe me."

"People say that."

His expression changed. Sarah suggested arranging assistance through an independent fund, with the terms written down and Rebecca responsible only to me.

Alexander agreed without bargaining. I asked Rebecca to explain the agreement twice. She did.

That evening, alone in the suite, I opened the contacts on my new phone. Empty. No list Derek had edited. No messages he could claim I had misunderstood.

I knew Lucy's childhood number, though I doubted it still worked. Her mother answered and gave me her current one after a long silence.

"She's going to be so glad," she said.

I didn't understand why until Lucy picked up.

"Hello?"

"Lucy? It's Emily."

I heard her put something down hard.

"Emily? Where are you?"

"I'm safe. I'm sorry I haven't—"

"Are you really safe? Is he there?"

"No."

She breathed out unevenly. "Okay. Tell me what happened."

I started with an apology. She stopped me halfway through.

"I came to your house six times. He said you were sleeping, then that you were away. The last time, he said you didn't want to see me anymore."

I sat on the bed.

"He told me you said I was selfish. That you were tired of hearing about my marriage."

"I never said that."

"He said you wished I'd stop calling."

"Emily, I wrote to you. I sent birthday cards. My mother sent you a Christmas card every year."

I remembered the empty mailbox and Derek telling me people got busy.

"I didn't get them."

Lucy went quiet. Then she asked for an address.

"You don't have to come tonight."

"Do you want me to?"

"Yes."

"Then I'm coming tonight."

She arrived in a coat with one button missing, carrying a tote bag full of things she had grabbed without knowing what I needed. Socks, a paperback, a toothbrush, a bag of the peppermints we used to buy after school.

For a second, we stared at each other.

Then she put the bag down and hugged me. I stiffened automatically. She loosened her arms, and I pulled her closer.

We sat on the floor because she said hotel sofas made her feel as if she had to behave.

"Your dad would've hated this room," she said, looking at the enormous windows.

"He would've asked how they cleaned them."

She laughed, and I laughed, and then both of us were crying.

She told me she had changed jobs, broken up with someone I'd never met, and taken a holiday with her mother. Ordinary news. Three years of ordinary news I hadn't been allowed to share.

"I thought you'd forgotten me," I admitted.

"I thought you were trying to forget yourself."

That hurt because there was truth in it. Even when I had opportunities to call, shame sometimes stopped me. I didn't know how to explain staying after I had promised I would leave.

"I don't know how to be the person you remember."

Lucy reached for a peppermint. "I'm not exactly the person you remember either. We can introduce ourselves again."

She held out her hand, absurdly formal.

"Lucy. Bad at keeping plants alive. Very good at ordering too much takeout."

I shook it through tears.

"Emily. Currently bad at almost everything."

"We'll work on your introduction."

Five days after my escape, Rebecca asked me to come to her office. Lucy drove me. I had begun leaving the building without waiting for Alexander to suggest it, but the street still made me search every approaching face.

Alexander was at the office with a man named Thomas Hale, a forensic accountant working with Rebecca on the financial questions surrounding my name.

Thomas opened a folder.

"Have you ever seen these accounts?"

I looked at the first page. Emily Carter. Then the next. Emily Carter again.

"No."

"Did you authorize transfers through these companies?"

"I don't have a company."

He turned the folder so I could see the amounts properly. The numbers were larger than anything I had ever been allowed to spend.

"Millions of dollars moved through accounts registered in your name," he said.

I looked at the phone I had been so proud to buy.

Then I asked how a woman who had to keep grocery receipts could supposedly own that much money.