I considered that briefly. And that’s how I knew that I was a little to blame here too. Because my husband, the man I had pledged my life to for better or worse, had been sitting in jail for three days, and I hadn’t been able to make myself go over there to see him. At thirty-eight, a woman has a certain level of knowledge about herself, and I knew I was bad in a crisis. Bill was great in a crisis. I felt frozen. Deep down, I knew I hadn’t gone because I didn’t believe he was a criminal. But the minute I looked at him, the minute I saw his face, I would know for sure. And if he was guilty, I wasn’t sure how I could survive it.

When I closed my eyes at night, while I was trying to sleep, I would think of that face, of the first moment I ever saw Bill. I had just graduated from college, just moved to New York. But I wasn’t exactly living out my Sex and the City dreams. I had interned for Bank of America the summers after my sophomore and junior years of college and was incredibly lucky to have been offered a job—albeit an entry-level one—right after graduation. I didn’t want to admit it, but I was scared. I was scared of leaving the safety of the small-town existence that I’d had in Chapel Hill and going out on my own. I was scared, that is, until my great-aunt asked me if I wanted to come live with her, save on rent. She lived way up Fifth Avenue, in a dated apartment in a beautiful prewar building that overlooked Central Park and the reservoir. The kitchen appliances were old (but who cooked anyway?), all my cool friends were living in Tribeca, and, well, my roommate was a seventy-eight-year-old woman. But I had my own bedroom and bathroom, and, what’s more, I had what I needed to make that leap: a sense of security. I was leaving the nest without leaving the nest.

I told people that my parents had insisted I live with Aunt Mary, which was completely untrue. She gave me a gift that year. Not only did I save a ton of money, but I also found the courage to take the next step, to find a career I loved, a man I loved, and friends who helped me grow up.