Our old neighbor Lupita still had the foreman’s number; the builder found his physical job ledger from that year, and there, in faded ink, was my aunt’s name, and beside it the notation: Ellen Morales.

Paid in full, cash. And that was when I understood George’s entire method, the pattern beneath all of it.

He took a grain of truth, and he wrapped a lie around it.

He had been on that roof.

Ellen had paid for it.

He built the forgery on the true photograph.

It was how he did everything.

Once I recognized the pattern, I could see it everywhere in George, running back through the entire marriage, and it explained something about him that had always confused me: how convincing he could be, even when he was lying.