Her mother doesn’t call—Cathy’s been forgetting birthdays for a decade—but Davis does, and Sara lets it ring. Last year, her twenty-ninth celebration started with a bottle of wine and romantic candlelight, them going to eat at a restaurant that neither could afford. She woke up the next morning with a nosebleed, a black eye, and $400 missing from her bank account. She had to call in sick for a week, lying to Dr. Jewell that she had the stomach flu. She didn’t want to see Davis but didn’t have much of a choice; he brought her food and apologized nonstop until he’d convinced her of the choreography of what had happened, describing some unlikely, expensive accident.

That was the nail in the coffin, she’d told herself at the time. But somehow he’d hung in there, begging his way back into her good graces. It’s not like he was a total drag: He was handsome, funny, could talk to anyone. On their good days together she was the queen of the world, and he gave her the sort of attention that made her hum with contentment. And there was the sex, which was truly remarkable. What couple didn’t have some problems?

Then, on New Year’s Eve, he did it again. Promised a big night out, persuaded her up to the ATM, and coaxed her to withdraw the last five hundred in her account. Which he turned right around and spent on coke. She hadn’t wanted any, just champagne. Davis, however, went on a rip, leaving her stranded in some far corner of Phoenix, all her cash gone, with just one good-for-nothing credit card tucked into her bra. Eventually she bummed a ride home, broke into her own apartment (her keys were in his car), and slept for two days, getting up every three hours to call Davis. No answer, no answer, until his phone died outright. Then it started going straight to voice mail, a chipper version of her boyfriend promising to call her back soon. At a certain point she stopped leaving messages. On the third morning she cleaned herself up as best she could, washed her hair, and covered the dark circles under her eyes with makeup. She found a spare set of car keys in a kitchen drawer and headed off to work. It was that first day back at Diamond Physical Therapy that she’d met Herb.

“Sara, wake up.” Herb is a silhouette in her bedroom doorway, his chair’s shape making him look massive.