“I know.”

Kelsey leaned forward.

“You expected me to read a letter saying he was leaving me, and then sit quietly and wait?”

“I expected you to be angry.”

“I was destroyed, Beatrice.”

My mother flinched at the word.

“I expected,” she continued carefully, “that Lawson would come home, go straight to your apartment, and you would confront him with it.

He would deny writing it.