I forwarded everything to a private account, and I put my phone in my pocket, and I went back into the reception to finish what they had started.

I want to sit for a moment with what that question did to me, because it was the true center of the whole night, more than the glue or the theft, and because I have had to be careful with it.

When Michelle told me my son had asked how his parents’ deaths would affect his inheritance, something in me that had been holding out hope for him — some last stubborn fatherly belief that this was all just a phase, a bad woman’s influence, a thing he would grow out of and be ashamed of — quietly let go.

Not because the question proved he meant us harm; I have said, and I mean it, that I do not know what was in his head, and I have refused to let my imagination convict him of a thing I cannot prove.