I set it on the carpet and looked at the keypad, and here is the small, sad detail that told me more about my husband than almost anything else: I knew the code.

There is an intimacy to knowing someone’s passwords that is supposed to run in the other direction — it is supposed to be a small daily proof of trust, the thing you share only with the person closest to you.

Julian had shared it with me the way he shared everything, carelessly, confident that his cleverness made him safe.

He had never once imagined that the trust could run backward, that the wife who knew his code might one day need it against him.

Julian used the same six digits for everything.