“Our marriage was already over anyway!”

“Then you should have had the courage to end it honestly,” I said, “instead of building a case to have me declared insane for objecting to it.”

He stared at me, and then he said the thing that was the truest thing in him, the bedrock under all nine years.

“You would never have left me on your own.”

And there it was, at last, spoken out loud.

Not a fear that I might leave.