Some of it had gone to cover overdue debts on his rental machinery, and a large piece of it had gone directly to Lorena Salgado — cash, over time, and, my father eventually admitted, toward a plan the two of them had discussed to buy a small commercial lot together.

My mother did not scream when she learned this.

She only asked, in that same terrible level voice, “You used money from land I co-owned to build a future with another woman.” It was not even a question.

My father looked at the floor and could not answer it.

She did her own accounting, then, the way she had done the household’s accounting for thirty-four years, except that this time she was auditing her own marriage.

She found one of Lorena’s gold earrings, swept under my father’s bed.