A card.

A lease he thought I’d never find.

In a courtroom, with a forensic accountant and a subpoena, all of it would come into the light, and not just for me.

For his mother.

For the family name he treated like a monument.

He weighed it.

I watched him do the arithmetic behind his eyes, the same arithmetic I’d watched him do about the marriage a hundred times — what does it cost me, what does it save me — and for once the numbers came out on my side.

He signed.