It was an exhausting way to live, smiling across the breakfast table at someone I was quietly investigating, kissing a cheek while I catalogued lies.

But I understood, even then, that the stakes were too high for anything less.

If I was going to say the unsayable, I was going to say it with proof in my hand, so that no one, not his mother, not the police, not my own doubting heart, could wave it away as a widow’s grief.

I would give him every chance to be innocent.

And I would not look away if he was not.