I watched the door close behind him.

And then, in the quiet of my own dining room, with my mother still staring at her plate and the guests murmuring their way toward the door, I stood, and began, calmly, to clear the table.

But I did not clear it the way a hostess clears a table.

I collected every glass that Adrian had touched that evening — his champagne flute, his water glass, the tumbler of scotch he’d had before dinner — and I did not wash them.

I carried them to the kitchen, and I sealed each one, separately, in a labeled evidence bag, the way I had been quietly instructed to by a private laboratory three days before.

I want to be honest that there was no rage in my hands as I did it.