The groceries came to eighty-seven dollars and forty-two cents, but David stood at the kitchen island gripping the half-gallon carton of pulp-free orange juice as if it were a weapon.

He put the carton down on the glass tabletop and tapped his gold wedding band on its edge three times.

“Six dollars and forty-nine cents for six glasses of juice,” he whispered, leaning across the counter until his face was eight inches from mine.

“You think my regional director title comes with a bottomless supply of cash?”

“It was on sale last week for four ninety-nine,” I told him.

I pressed my right hand flat on my breastbone and felt the hard line of the bone through my sweater.

David snapped his leather briefcase shut on the wooden chair beside him, but the silver latch snagged on a loose scrap of white paper poking out of the side pocket.

I reached across the table to tug the paper free before the dark leather ripped.

It was a thin thermal receipt from a boutique on Elm Street, dated yesterday afternoon at three fifteen.

The one line of text near the bottom said yellow baby blanket, fourteen dollars even.

David didn’t own a yellow baby blanket, and he had spent yesterday afternoon telling me he was stuck in a three-hour budget review meeting forty miles away in Waukesha.

Before I could raise my head, his fingers closed over mine and yanked the receipt away so hard that the crisp paper edge sliced right across my thumb.

“We’re not wasting my money on worthless baby junk,” he said, his voice sinking so low I had to strain to hear it over the hum of the refrigerator.

“I didn’t buy it,” I said.

“Then let it go,” he whispered.

He shoved the torn slip of paper deep into his trouser pocket and picked up his leather case.

“I expect the grocery line in our ledger to stay below one hundred and twenty dollars a week,” he said, turning his back on me.

He walked out toward the front hall without a backward glance.