Not believe me over them.

Not take my side.

Just look at the dates, and not at what my mother said, and not at what my father said, but at the plain unarguable column of Fridays, each one with the same amount beside it, running down the page for three years without a single gap.

Linda ran her fingertip down the rows and said, three years, and I said yes, and she said, I did not know that, and I said I know, and then she said the thing that I think cost her the most, because she is a proud woman and it was an admission against herself.

I believed your mother because she was your mother, she said.