“But I don’t want to walk in there and defend myself.

I don’t want to argue.

I want to let Julian speak first, and I want to let him keep speaking.” Because if twenty years of marriage had taught me one reliable thing about my husband, it was this: whenever Julian felt powerful, whenever he believed he had already won, he could not stop talking.

He would explain, and boast, and threaten, and justify, and in the process he would say far, far too much.

I had watched it happen a hundred times, always to someone else’s cost.

This time, I would sit in silence, and hand him a shovel, and let him dig.