Gabriel came down the last of the stairs slowly, his eyes moving between my soaked sleeves and her dry, furious face.

“Did you throw that bucket at her?” he asked her.

“She provoked me.” “I asked you a question.” She changed tack, fast: “She’s trying to ruin us, Gabriel, because she can’t control you anymore.

That’s what this is.”

I did not argue with her.

Arguing was what she wanted — a shouting match between two women that my son would have to referee, in which the truth would dissolve into he-said-she-said and his loyalty would pull him, inevitably, toward the woman he had chosen.

So instead of arguing, I reached into my pocket and set the recorder down on the marble table between us.

She stared at it.

And I watched the understanding arrive — that the woman she had soaked was not helpless, had never been helpless, and had been carrying a witness in her pocket the entire time.

I pressed play.