Part Two

My husband got our house back by telling a lie, and every person who heard him tell it was glad.

Then a lawyer asked him a simple question — where is the four hundred thousand dollars? — and I found out I had spent a year living inside a sentence that was never true.

Chapter 1 — Certified Mail

By that spring my hair was long enough to hold a clip, and I had started to be strange about it.

I checked it in every reflective surface — the microwave door, the side of the toaster, the dark window over the sink at night.

Gavin caught me at it once and didn’t say anything, which was worse than if he had.

Fourteen months since the surgery. Nine months since the last round of chemo.