The day I finally got my remission papers, I felt like I had conquered the world. I drove home, my bald head covered by a cheap blue knit scarf. I was ready to celebrate. I thought maybe we could finally take that trip.

But when I opened the front door, the house was dead silent.

I walked into our bedroom. David’s closet doors were wide open. Every single hanger was empty. His shoes were gone. The dresser drawers were pulled out, cleared of his socks and t-shirts. There was a single sheet of paper on the kitchen island.

“I can’t do this anymore, Sarah. You’re not the woman I married. I need to live my life.”

I found out a week later from our neighbor. He hadn’t just left. He had moved into a luxury apartment downtown with Chloe. She was 28. A personal trainer at the gym where David spent his evenings while I was throwing up in our bathroom. He left me with $40,000 in unpaid medical bills. The insurance had covered some, but the copays were suffocating. I had to take out a second mortgage on our small house just to keep from being evicted.

For two years, I lived in survival mode. I went back to work at the dentist’s office, filing insurance claims all day. I wore scarves until my hair grew back in thin, graying curls. Not once did David call. Not on my birthday. Not when my mother died that winter. The neighborhood ladies would see me at the grocery store and look away. They knew David was downtown, buying Chloe a brand-new Jeep. They had seen his Facebook posts.

I kept my blue spiral notebook on the kitchen table. But now, it wasn’t for grocery lists.

It was a log of my debts. Every penny I owed to the hospital, the bank, the credit card companies. I wrote them down in neat columns. It was my daily reminder of what he had done to me.

Then, on a Tuesday in November, my phone rang. An unknown number. I answered. It was a raspy, weak voice.

“Sarah? It’s David.”

My stomach dropped. I didn’t say anything.