Kelly Edwards: Describe a memory when you felt independent and empowered.

Judy Allen: I think the most empowered I've ever felt in my life was when my philandering husband told me he was going to work and I suddenly realized he had gone to be with his girlfriend. I went to where she was staying and found his car parked in front of her house. Got a great big rock about as big as a bowling ball from somebody's garden and heaved it through the back window of his car. That was wonderful. It felt great. And then I started divorce proceedings.

Years later he sent me a message somehow and told me that he still had some stuff of mine, books and things, that if I was ever traveling in Alaska I should stop by and pick them up. And I was doing a business trip to Alaska so I went up there, made an appointment, went to see him in his office and he handed me a very heavy box. And said, It's a lot of heavy stuff, books and stuff in there. And so I dragged it and schlepped it through airports all the way home. God, it was heavy. And I got home and opened it and it nothing in it but that rock. Which he had saved all those years.