She picked up her purse, walked back past the bedroom—Ethan still laughing about sports now—and into his “office” (really a spare room he never let her enter). Messy: clothes, beer bottles, papers. In a drawer under magazines, credit-card statements—$15,000, $20,000, $8,000—recent charges for jewelry, hotels, restaurants she’d never seen. Brooke. He was still adding debt while she paid.
She photographed everything, hands steady now, mind sharp. Exhaustion burned away, replaced by cold focus.
She’d been asleep three years. Now she was awake. Ethan would regret calling her his slave.
Sarah didn’t sleep. She lay in the guest room, listening to Ethan stumble to the bathroom, snoring return to their bed—the bed she’d never sleep in again. At 4 a.m. her alarm rang for hospital shift. She called in sick—first time in 18 months—guilt heavy but pushed down.
She showered, dressed in her only decent blazer and pants, emailed a divorce lawyer recommended by her friend Brenda. Then she drove to the lawyer’s office.