And I had drawn it for her, filled it in, marked the study and the safe and the drawer with the deeds, because I was a lonely man being loved and I would have told her anything.

Watching her walk out with that box, I did not feel heartbreak.

I felt the specific nausea of a man who has just seen, played back with the sound off, the whole two years of his own careful grooming, and understood that not one moment of it had been what he thought it was.

Chapter 12 — Every Lock

The next morning I changed every lock in that house.

I reset the alarm codes, every password, every credit card.