“Six months,” he said.

Twelve years of friendship and four years of marriage, and the answer was six months.

“I want you to leave,” I said — to him, in his own home, and I heard how strange that was even as I said it.

It was strange, and it was also the first true thing I’d done all night.

Because it was not his home, not really, not in the way he thought.

The down payment had come from my father.