Not an empire.”

I should have simply refused again and left the room.

Instead, I made the mistake of asking a question, because some part of me still wanted to understand the man I had married.

I looked at Derek, at the strange desperation under his anger, and I said, “Why are you so desperate for it?” I did not yet know that he had a reason — a specific, catastrophic, ninety-thousand-dollar reason — that made my father’s little house the only thing standing between him and ruin.

I only knew that my question landed on him like a lit match, and that his face changed, and that I had, without meaning to, pushed him past the edge of whatever had been holding him back.