Every moment of the past twelve weeks shifted in my mind, turning completely inside out.

I remembered him standing beside our kitchen table in October, placing the thick manila envelope next to the salt shaker without taking off his coat.

I remembered him sitting in his sedan in the church parking lot, handing me a fourteen-thousand-dollar cashier’s check to clear my car loan while refusing to meet my eyes.

He had deliberately destroyed his own standing in the church community.

He had let his friends think he was heartless, and he had let his own daughter turn away from him in tears.