And I stood in that doorway and watched it happen, and I understood that whatever came next out of his mouth — the explanations, the pleading, the we can work this out — would be theater, layered over a foundation that had just shown me exactly what it was made of.

You cannot un-see a man’s first reflex.

It is the one thing he can never take back, because he never meant to show it to you at all.

I lifted the insulated bag I had carried up in the elevator.

“You told me you’d be working late,” I said.

“I brought you dinner.” I set it down on the floor beside the door.

“Carry on.”