Willow must have caught her expression. “Just because I’m educated doesn’t mean I had some special warning that the charming, successful man I’d married was secretly a monster. My law degree didn’t make me immune to the things that went on behind closed doors.”

She snapped the book shut. “As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” She looked around the circle. “So you’re my first step.”

Caroline didn’t move a muscle. She felt heartsick and frustrated by the stories she was hearing. The losses caused by abuse mounted. Hearing the women speak was humbling. They came from every sort of diverse background, every stratum of society. The one common thread was that each had suffered at the hands of an intimate partner. A husband. A boyfriend. A girlfriend.

Economic hardship was part of nearly everyone’s story. Women shackled themselves to abusers in order to survive, and they stayed trapped there, sometimes for years. Most people didn’t have parents like Caroline’s, offering a safe haven.

She had lived her life taking independence for granted. Now that she had children to look after, she could understand the compromises women were sometimes forced to make. She wanted to create something so successful that she could afford full-time help from Echo. And hiring Echo was only a small step. Caroline needed a bigger plan. She vowed to expand her business beyond superhero T-shirts. She wanted to create more opportunities for more women. Like Amy. Caroline was already paying a commercial driver to take her bagged and tagged garments to Seattle and Portland. Why not Amy, who loved to drive? And if the income stream ever permitted it, she’d hire Willow in a heartbeat, to help with the business side of things. Caroline knew design. Patternmaking and sample sewing, fit and sourcing. The business structure—not so much.

The latecomer named Ilsa rifled through the basket. “I don’t see anything in here for me,” she said. “I’m not even sure I belong in a group like this. I’ve never been married, haven’t been in a long-term relationship. I’m here because I had . . .” Setting down the basket, she kept her eyes trained on the floor. “I don’t even know what to call what happened to me. A bad date? A bad encounter?”

She absently rubbed the side of her neck with her hand. To Caroline, she looked very young, barely out of her teens. “It was a guy I’d just met for drinks, and he seemed kind of cute. I’m a web designer, and he was interested in my work. Good profile on a dating app. I was a little drunk,” Ilsa went on. “I shouldn’t have gotten in the car with him, but I was in no shape to drive. He offered to take me home. Then he wanted to make out, so we did that for a while, but I really wanted to go home. And . . . and he started forcing me, and I’m like, no, but it wasn’t really a hard no. I didn’t want to be awkward or dramatic. And he’s like, ‘Oh, you want it rough,’ and he yanked off my blouse and tried to force me.”

The young woman’s words ignited a deep sense of outrage in Caroline, awakening an old but never-quite-forgotten memory. She didn’t move, but felt her hands curl into fists.

“I—he . . . Somehow I managed to wriggle free. I shoved the door open and literally fell on the ground in the parking lot. Then I ran like hell to my own car. I don’t even remember getting in. I remember him peeling out of the parking lot. I just sat there in my car with all the doors locked, shaking. Shaking so hard I thought my teeth would fall out. Finally I managed to get the key in the ignition. By then I was stone-cold sober. I’m sure I was in shock. God, it happened so fast . . .”

These things can catch you off guard, thought Caroline, feeling a prickle at the back of her neck.

“I should be grateful that I managed to get away,” Ilsa said. “And I figured, that’s that. It’s over. It was a bad moment. I’m just going to forget it happened and move on.”

Finally she looked up from the floor. “I can’t forget. The whole incident took up maybe five minutes of my life, but I can’t stop thinking about it. I go over and over it in my mind. Was I stupid to have one too many? Idiotic to get in his car? Was my skirt too short? My blouse too tight? Then I wonder if I should tell someone—my mom, a friend. But I couldn’t bring myself to speak up. This is the first time I’ve said a single word about it. And here’s the kicker. He keeps texting me, trying to get me to go out with him again. He’s acting like we had a good time. He even sent me a dick pic. So I guess . . .” She hunched her shoulders. Rubbed her neck again. “That’s why I’m not sure about being here.” She stared down at her hands, picked at her nails. “Like, was I abused? Was it a sexual assault? Or just a really bad date?”

You were assaulted, Caroline told her with silent, fierce certainty. That’s an absolute fact. She could scarcely imagine the trauma the girl must have felt. Except . . . maybe she could. A long-buried incident, never quite forgotten, nudged its way up from the past. The smell of salt water on his skin, J?germeister on his breath. The weight of him, pinning her on the blanket. His husky voice in her ear. That, too, had been the briefest of encounters, but years later, it was burned into her memory. She was surprised by the vehemence she felt all the way down to the bottom of her gut. Now she realized that if the intimacy didn’t feel right, it probably wasn’t right.

“You’re welcome here,” Lindy Bloom said. “There’s no prerequisite to join us.”

When the basket came to Caroline, she took a moment to study the contents, even though she’d put the thing together. Ordinary objects. Things encountered every day. In her work, Caroline had made presentations to high-powered design professionals and creative directors, to the world-renowned designers themselves. Yet speaking to the group of women in Oysterville felt far more intimidating.

She took out a cockleshell, pinkish brown with ridges, a common find on the beaches in the area. “I’m drawn to this one,” she said, holding the shell in her palm. “It reminds me of my old family nickname—C-Shell. I nearly forgot about that until I came back here. Now I’ve turned it into the name of the clothes I’m designing.” She took a breath and looked around the room. “I have to tell you, I’m blown away by everything I’ve heard. And although I’ve never been in an abusive relationship, I have had an incident like the one Ilsa described.”

Without even looking at her sisters, she could sense them sitting up as if someone had stuck a ramrod up their backs. “It was a long time ago, and I didn’t speak up, either, but it still haunts me sometimes.” She knew her sisters were going to be full of questions, and she’d answer them later. Maybe. Memories were powerful. They could haunt and torment and plague the soul with what-ifs and should-haves. She gripped the shell so tightly, she could feel its sharp edges biting into her.

“But that’s not why I wanted to create a group like this. My life has been touched by domestic violence in a serious way. One of my closest friends was a victim. I wish I could tell you she’s a survivor, but she didn’t make it.”

She took a deep breath, trying to gather her thoughts. She shut her eyes and the memories swept in, fresh as yesterday. “When I was a designer in New York, I worked with a beautiful model who I thought was at the top of her game in the fashion world. One day I noticed bruises on her. She brushed off my concern, and I didn’t press her. I wish . . . I should have pushed harder, but I didn’t know. I didn’t realize . . . and then not long afterward, she came to me in a panic with her two kids. They needed a place to stay. I tried to help. I thought I was helping. Then one day I came home and found her dead of an overdose. I had no idea she was using drugs. I can’t help but think it’s related to her being abused. Now I’m taking care of her children and I’m overwhelmed. I’m trying my best to help them deal with what happened.”

She knew she would forever be haunted by the promise she had made, sincerely and naively, to her friend. She was plagued by questions, doubts, uncertainty. Should she have called the police right away? Should she have pressed harder, bullied Angelique into opening up? Was there some other choice she could have made that might have changed the outcome?

“I miss my friend,” she said, closing her eyes and picturing Angelique in all her glory. “She was more than beautiful. She had so much will and grit, maybe so much that the world looked past what was going on inside. I know I did. And now I’ve lost her, and everything happened so fast I haven’t really mourned her. My worst fear is that I won’t do right by her children.”