I had spent the drive from the hospital half-expecting to hate her, that trusting younger version of myself who had ignored her own father and married a man for his warmth without ever auditing whether the warmth was real.

But standing in front of her painted face, I found I could not manage the hate.

She had not been stupid.

She had been generous, and hopeful, and in love, and those are not crimes, even when they are aimed at someone who does not deserve them.

The red X was not for her.

It was for him, and only for him — a single, private, unlawyerly mark, the one place in that entire cold campaign where I let the wife speak instead of the strategist.

She got her one gesture.