AMY ELLIOTT DUNNE

EIGHT WEEKS AFTER THE RETURN

No one has arrested me. The police have stopped questioning. I feel safe. I will be even safer very soon.

This is how good I feel: Yesterday I came downstairs for breakfast, and the jar that held my vomit was sitting on the kitchen counter, empty. Nick – the scrounger – had gotten rid of that little bit of leverage. I blinked an eye, and then I tossed out the jar.

It hardly matters now.

Good things are happening.

I have a book deal: I am officially in control of our story. It feels wonderfully symbolic. Isn’t that what every marriage is, anyway? Just a lengthy game of he-said, she-said? Well, she is saying, and the world will listen, and Nick will have to smile and agree. I will write him the way I want him to be: romantic and thoughtful and very very repentant – about the credit cards and the purchases and the woodshed. If I can’t get him to say it out loud, he’ll say it in my book. Then he’ll come on tour with me and smile and smile.

I’m calling the book simply: Amazing. Causing great wonder or surprise; astounding. That sums up my story, I think.