The woman looking back at her was the same woman who had signed her name in a courthouse that morning and walked out into the sun. But she looked different than she had a year ago. More settled. More present. More fully herself than she had been at any point in the previous decade.
She had ended a marriage. That was real, and it had cost her something.
But she had recovered something that no document and no settlement could have given her if she had not first decided she deserved it.
She had recovered herself.
And standing there in the quiet of her own home, on her own terms, with the future stretching open in front of her without conditions or apologies, she felt something she had almost forgotten was possible.
