And Craig, who worked a small county job and brought home a fraction of what I did, who drove the car I bought and wore the suits I chose and used the credit card tied to my account, and who covered all of that with a manufactured authority he only ever exercised at home — Craig did what his mother told him to do.

He did not ask a single question.

He did not look at the blood on my mouth.

To a man that hollow, his mother “wronged” and his wife standing was an intolerable thing, and here was permission to fix it.

What he did to me is in the medical report.

Soft-tissue trauma.