By the time my husband graduated from medical school I had spent eight years paying for it. On the lawn afterward his mother took the flowers out of my hands, he pushed an envelope into them, and I opened it standing in front of eighty people.

I moved out of the apartment in the June because I could not afford it alone. I lived in my sister’s spare room for seven months at thirty-one years old.

I lost the urgent care billing job. Not fired — they were scrupulously correct about the whole business and my clearance letter says so — but the audit made the working relationship impossible and everyone involved knew it. I resigned in the August. They gave me a good reference and I do not hold it against them.

So for four months I had one income, from the dental office, and a lawyer.

Mabel took part of her fee on contingency out of the eventual settlement, which she was not obliged to do, and which she framed as a business decision, and which was not a business decision.

There were two nights in that stretch I am not going to describe.

What actually got me through it is not the answer anybody wants. It was the records.