The way his mother spoke about his last girlfriend, the one who “never knew her place.” The offhand remarks about how his father “kept his mother in line,” delivered as though it were something to admire.

Small things, each one easy to explain away, each one filed under every family is strange and no one is perfect. I had a whole drawer of these small wrong notes, collected over two years, and I had kept the drawer shut because I was in love and because keeping it shut was easier than what opening it would ask of me.

Then Casper threw a grease rag in my face on the first morning of our marriage, and the drawer flew open all at once, and every note I’d been ignoring arranged itself instantly into a single clear picture.

I did not have to work anything out in that kitchen.

I already knew.

I had known, in the drawer I kept closed, for a long time — and the rag only gave me permission to stop pretending I didn’t.