That is a worldview.

And a worldview does not get stressed about a wedding and behave badly for an afternoon; a worldview simply waits for the rooms to empty of witnesses and then acts on what it has always believed.

I did not need the fraud to know I could not let her marry my son.

I knew it the moment I heard how restful cruelty was in her mouth.

Chapter 10 — The Muddy Mark

The bucket came last, and it came because I refused her.

She noticed a muddy mark near the foyer — I do not know whether she made it herself, as she had with Luis, or whether it was simply there — and she ordered me to clean it.

Not with a cloth.

With my hands.

She said it the way you would say it to a dog, pointing at the floor, and she watched to see whether I would lower myself to the marble and scrub at it with my bare fingers while she stood over me in her beautiful shoes.