Chapter 5
My lawyer’s name was Mara Torres.
She was in her mid-thirties, with a sharp black bob and a leather jacket that looked like it had seen a few fights.
She showed up at Mrs. Greene’s house two hours after I called, a thick file folder tucked under her arm.
We sat at the kitchen table while Mrs. Greene made us tea.
Mara listened while I told her everything.
Again.
The abuse.
The control.
The stolen money.
She didn’t interrupt.
She just took notes, her pen flying across the page, her face a mask of concentration.
When I was done, she closed her notebook.
“Okay, here’s the deal,” she said, leaning forward. “Ethan thinks he’s smart. He thinks because the accounts were joint, he can get away with taking your money. He’s wrong. We can prove every dollar in that savings account was yours before you got married. We have your old pay stubs, your tax returns, bank statements going back five years. That’s separate property. He had no right to touch it. As for the checking account—half of what’s in there is legally yours, even the money he earned. We’re going to file for divorce first thing tomorrow morning. We’ll ask the court for an immediate freeze on all his accounts so he can’t spend your money. We’ll also ask for exclusive use of the house and the cars, spousal support, and full reimbursement of every cent he stole. And Elena?”
She paused, looking me right in the eye.
“We’re going to nail him for domestic violence. The medical records, the police report, the texts he sent you—those are a home run. He’s not going to know what hit him.”
I exhaled, some of the tension leaving my shoulders.
“Can we really do all that?” I asked.
“Watch me,” Mara said, grinning. “I’ve been doing this for ten years. I’ve taken down guys twice as smart and twice as rich as your husband. He doesn’t stand a chance.”
She left a little while later, promising to have all the paperwork filed by the end of the day.
True to her word, she called me at five that evening.
“Done,” she said. “Divorce petition filed. Account freeze granted. The court just ordered Ethan to turn over half the money in all his accounts within seventy-two hours, pending the final hearing. He’s also required to let you go back to the house tomorrow with a police escort to get your things. Two officers will meet you there at noon. Don’t worry—they won’t let him within a hundred feet of you.”
My hands shook when I hung up.
I was going back to that house.
The place where I’d been hurt so many times.
The thought made my skin crawl.
But I had to do it.
I needed my clothes.
My work laptop.
The photo album of my grandma that Ethan had hidden somewhere.
Mrs. Greene squeezed my shoulder.
“I’m coming with you,” she said. “You don’t have to step foot in that house alone.”
Noon the next day came too fast.
Two police cars were parked out front when we pulled up.
Ethan was standing on the porch, his arms crossed, his face purple with rage.
His parents were right behind him.
The officers stepped between us before he could say a word.
“Mr. Carter,” Officer Carter said—she’d volunteered to come, I later found out—“you know the rules. You and your parents will wait in the backyard while Ms. Carter collects her belongings. If you come inside, if you yell, if you so much as look at her wrong, you go to jail. Do I make myself clear?”
Ethan’s jaw worked.
He looked like he wanted to say something.
One look at the officer’s hand resting on her taser changed his mind.
“Fine,” he spat. “But if she takes anything that’s mine, I’m pressing charges.”
He and his parents stomped around to the back.
I took a deep breath.
I walked up the steps and pushed open the front door.
The house smelled the same.
Lemon Pledge and Ethan’s cheap cologne.
It made my stomach turn.
I went straight to the bedroom first.
I grabbed my clothes, shoving them into garbage bags as fast as I could.
I didn’t care about folding.
I just wanted out.
I was reaching under the bed for my winter boots when my hand hit something hard.
A shoebox.
I pulled it out.
It was full of papers.
Old mail.
I almost put it back.
Then I saw my name on an envelope.
I opened it.
It was a letter.
Dated three years ago.
Before we got married.
*Dear Ethan,* it said. I know you said you don’t want to talk anymore, but I had to write. I saw the engagement announcement on Facebook. That girl Elena—she looks so nice. Please don’t do to her what you did to me. Please get help. You’re not a bad person, Ethan. You just don’t know how to love without hurting. But if you won’t do it for yourself, do it for her. No one deserves what you put me through. — Lisa
Lisa.
His ex-fiancée.
The one he’d told me was crazy.
The one he said had stalked him and made up lies about him after he broke up with her.
My hands shook as I dug deeper into the box.
More letters.
More from Lisa.
Police reports.
A restraining order she’d filed against him two months before they broke up.
Medical records.
Pictures of her with black eyes.
Bruises on her neck.
Exactly like mine.
And then I found his mom’s journal.
Tucked under a stack of old magazines.
I flipped through it, my blood running colder with every page.
*Elena is too independent,* she’d written six months after we got married. She thinks just because she makes money she can talk back to me. I told Ethan he needs to break her. A woman’s place is in the home, serving her husband and his family. If he doesn’t do it soon, she’s going to leave him and take all that money with her.
*Today I spilled soup on her new blouse on purpose,* another entry read. She didn’t say a word. Good. She’s learning. Ethan was proud of me.
*I’m going to push her tonight and tell Ethan she fell. He’ll believe me. He always does. She needs to be taught a lesson for forgetting to buy my favorite tea.*
I closed the journal.
I felt like I was going to throw up.
All the lies.
All the manipulation.
It had all been planned.
Every single bit of it.
I stuffed the letters, the police reports, the journal into my bag.
This wasn’t just evidence for the divorce anymore.
This was proof.
Proof that Ethan had done this before.
Proof he would do it again.
Proof that his mother was just as guilty as he was.
I grabbed the rest of my things and walked out of that house as fast as I could.
May you like
I didn’t look back.
Not once.
