Now the delay was mine, and I had to admit that some of what frightened me was the possibility of learning something I couldn’t easily fit into the story I had told myself.

For five years, Gregory had been the man who considered three thousand dollars enough to finish a long marriage.

What would it mean if that wasn’t the whole truth?

It wouldn’t make the courthouse less real.

It wouldn’t undo the silence afterward.

But it might make anger more complicated, and anger had at least been simple to carry.

On Wednesday, Karen came with a folder of receipts.

I was spooning oatmeal into bowls when she opened it.