That sentence is the one that broke something in me that will never be repaired, and I am almost grateful for it, because it was the truth, finally, in plain words.

For nine years I had made excuses — for Christopher’s quiet resentment of my inheritance, for his endless questions about my banking passwords, for the way Beatrice had taken to calling my grandmother’s firm “our family business,” for their strange, persistent interest in property that had been mine alone since before the wedding.

Lying on that floor, listening to my husband worry aloud about a phone call while I begged him for help, I watched every one of those warning signs snap, at last, into a single clear and horrifying picture.

And when he finally crouched down beside me, and I let myself hope for one foolish second that the man I married was still in there — he leaned close, and looked into my eyes, and said, quietly, “You really should have just signed the papers, Rosalie.”

Chapter 6 — The Garage

What they did after that, I will describe as plainly and as briefly as I can, because the fact of it matters and the lingering over it does not.