“There isn’t one,” Ellis said, not unkindly.

“Then we lose the house.”

“Gavin,” I said.

“I mean it. I’ll sell the shop. I’ll go back north for two years. She doesn’t do this.”

And there it was again, the same shape as the backyard, the same shape as the lie at the notary.

Gavin loves me the way a man carries a heavy thing up a staircase — with his back, alone, without asking, and slightly too fast for anyone to help.